


Roads Not Taken

by eventualprocrastination



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2018-12-03 07:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11527698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eventualprocrastination/pseuds/eventualprocrastination
Summary: Because Rick decided to be the knight in shining armor for some woman he didn't know on the side of the road, he ends up not making it to Atlanta to find his family after waking from his coma. Instead, he heads down a different road and begins to take a different path; not knowing if and when he'll ever see his wife and son again. [Rick/OC]





	1. The Road Not Taken

__

_“I shall be telling this with a sigh_  
_Somewhere ages and ages hence:_  
_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_  
_I took the one less traveled by,_  
_And that has made all the difference.”_  
— Robert Frost, ‘The Road Not Taken’

* * *

  
It would be a long ride into Atlanta from where he was currently; astride a horse in the Georgian countryside with naught but a bag of weaponry across his back and sheer determination to find his family. Nothing would prevent him from reaching that goal, no matter how long it took. If it took days, weeks, and months or — heaven forbid — years, he would never give up. Even if all he found was their graves or their wandering corpses, he would find them, at whatever the cost.  
  
Rick Grimes would never stop looking.  
  
The afternoon heat wasn’t too bad. There was barely a cloud in the sky to block the sun which was beating down, but it still was a bad of a day as it normally could be in the South. He wasn’t sure on the date anymore, having lost track of time due to the weeks he spent in a coma at that hospital back in King County, but the arc of the sun and how long the day was lasting gave Rick the impression it was still summer out, though possibly late summer. Early or mid-August perhaps? Maybe it was closer to September? He should’ve asked Morgan if he knew before they parted ways that morning.  
  
What Rick really wanted at that very moment was for the horse to go a bit faster so he could reach the city by nightfall; but with what little water he had to spare, he didn’t want to overwork the horse and then be forced to walk the rest of the way. Though, he would if he absolutely had to.  
  
Traveling along at a slow to moderate pace, Rick was still trying to shake the image of the dead woman missing her lower half that he had killed that very morning from his memory, as well as, more recently, the dead couple inside the house from where he’d acquired the horse. Instead, Rick tried to focus on happy thoughts, as if Peter Pan was encouraging him to fly. So, he thought about his wife Lori and their son Carl. He thought about Sunday mornings, waking up to the smell of coffee and bacon and trying to stomach Lori’s terrible pancakes. Though it was a weekly tradition and Lori was aware her pancakes were no good and was equally aware that Rick and Carl didn’t like them, they ate them regardless, because they knew how much having a family breakfast like that meant to her. Sometimes, though, and much to Rick and Carl’s pleasure, Lori would toss everything into the trash and they would just go to the nearest Waffle House or IHOP.  
  
_Shit_.  
  
Rick’s stomach growled.  
  
Even Lori’s cooking sounded good right about now.  
  
The quiet of the ride droned on for a couple miles more, with Rick’s mind slipping into different daydreams here and there. The only sounds were that of the horse’s hooves on the pavement and the slight jostling of guns and boxes of ammo in the bag on his back.  
  
At least, those  _were_ the only sounds.

 

* * *

  
With burning lungs, she ran at full speed without daring to look back once. Through the trees and other overgrowth, she zigzagged in her path in some attempt to throw her pursuers off her trail and, thankfully, it seemed to be working so far. She refused to slow down, though. She’d seen all the horror movies. Just when the heroine thinks she’s safe and the coast is finally clear, only then does the villain emerge and she wasn’t going to be any damsel in distress. At least, she didn’t want to be although that’s pretty much what she was.  
  
Running from a half dozen armed assholes, without any weaponry of her own left at her disposal, made her in serious need of a knight in shining armor. Had she the time to take a moment and think about the position she was in from an outsider’s prospective, she would surely blanch in disgust at herself. That idea of being “a strong, independent woman who didn’t need a man” had been drilled into her head by her mother for as long as she could remember and now, here she was, in desperate need of one. Or anyone, to be honest, as long as they had guns who could help her get away, hide or fight back.  
  
Instead, running was the only option available to her at the moment and she was really starting to wish she’d taken part in physical sports in school or actually bothered to utilize that damn gym membership. She was not used to running so long and so hard, without stopping for breath. She was by no means out of shape, but she wasn’t exactly fit either. She also wished she had better shoes on. The boots she wore, while practical for walking through tall grass and kept her feet protected and warm, were in no way or shape made for this kind of activity. By the time she would finally manage to find a proper place to hide or find shelter in for the night, she was sure she would find blisters galore once she took the damn boots off.  
  
Not only did she not have the time to catch her breath, but she also didn’t have time to fully deal with her recent loss; that grief and anger she could contribute to the men after her.  
  
She was a believer in karma, though, and believed they would get what was coming to them eventually.  
  
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.   
  
Coming to a large tree, the path she was on forked in one of two directions; one that continued north through the woods, into terrain she knew would likely grow steeper, and one that would soon come out to a road that would at some point lead to I-85. The latter was a tricky option. Open roads meant being out in the open, which could make her a veritable sitting duck, and it also meant the likelihood of abandoned cars and the dead moving together en masse.  
  
Her legs and feet couldn’t handle steep, rugged terrain anymore. Risking going north, further through the woods was putting her life at further risk. At least on an open road, she might be able to find an abandoned car and possibly hide out in a backseat or, better yet, in a trunk.  
  
So, that was the choice she made.  
  
She chose the path in front of her.

 

* * *

  
After a bend in the road, Rick happened upon a sign that indicated he was entering the city limits of some town. On his right was a large open field that was fenced off with woven wire fencing and covered with vines and other overgrowth in spots. On his left was some train tracks and beyond it a smaller open field surrounded by more immediate woods. There were a few buildings here and there, mainly farmhouses and barns, so Rick kept his eyes peeled for any signs of the dead that might come out of the woodwork at the sound of the horse’s hooves clopping on the pavement.  
  
As Rick passed out into the open between both fields on either side of the road, a familiar sound wafted easily through the air.  
  
A voice—specifically female—and, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was calling to him.  
  
For a moment, Rick’s heart swelled with hope.  
  
Turning to look over his shoulder, he reined the horse in to get it to stop and focused on the trees lining the train tracks at his left. There, stumbling mid-run, was a brunette woman whose light, army green jacket was flapping wildly behind her from the speed with which she was running because there sure as hell wasn’t a breeze.  
  
Because of that moment of hope, Rick’s first thought was that it was Lori running to him but, upon narrowing his blue eyes, he could tell the woman had slightly wider hips and a fuller chest as well.  
  
“Hey!” the woman shouted to him, waving her arms. “Please, stop! Wait!”  
  
Already stopped, Rick frowned and then decided to turn the horse around to meet her halfway as she began to clamber over the tracks; damn near losing her footing in the process. Throwing her hands out before her to steady herself, the woman continued on; barely missing a beat and looking up at Rick with widened, panicked eyes.  
  
“Hey—you okay?” Rick asked. Obviously, she wasn’t, but he was a gentleman and making sure she was okay was the instinctually polite thing to do.  
  
“I need help,” she gasped, struggling to catch her breath as she hunched forward and braced her knees. “There’s these guys who are after me. I have no weapons to protect myself and I’m pretty sure I might’ve just twisted my ankle a bit on those tracks. I can’t outrun those bastards for much longer.” Looking up at Rick, and still breathing heavily, her brow knitted together in pain and her eyes were pleading. “Please, can you get me out of here?”  
  
Scanning the trees from whence she came, Rick ignored the sounds of her wheezing breath and listened in on anything else. It was very, very faint but he was positive he could hear more voices; the sound came across like distant echoes coming from deep within the woods and had no doubt this woman was telling the truth that there were men nearby. Because he couldn’t make out anything they were actually saying, he knew they weren’t too close, but if they were running, they would be soon.  
  
With a quick glimpse at the surrounding area, Rick sighed and nodded down at the woman.  
  
From what he could tell, from where he sat atop the horse, the pockets of her pants weren’t deep enough to hold a weapon of any sort; not even a measly pocket knife. A memory of Lori complaining to him about women’s pants and small pockets came to him suddenly. This woman’s jacket also hung straight down on her with no lumps to indicate any sort of hidden weapons there either so he believed her tale to be true, or at least true enough that she didn’t pose a threat to him.  
  
Tightening his grip on the reins, Rick held his left hand out to her.  
  
With a large smile of relief, the woman took the hand offered and allowed him to help pull her up onto the horse. She gripped the horn of the saddle with her free hand and was given the space to hook her foot into the stirrup so she could climb up when he removed his own foot. Scooting back a few inches, Rick gave her enough room to throw her right leg over and be able to sit in front of him on the saddle with him. It was a tight fit, but they would have to make do so they could get out of there as quickly as possible.  
  
“Thank you so much,” the woman uttered, not daring to complain about the saddle’s horn pressing painfully into her crotch.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Rick muttered into her hair as he tried looking around her head. Slipping his right arm around her waist, he held her in place so she didn’t fall off, while shaking the reins with his left hand and signaling for the horse to get a move on. “Hold on,” he urged the woman as the horse broke into a gallop with little provocation.   
  
At the sound of increasingly louder voices, both Rick and the woman looked back over their shoulders toward the woods beyond the train tracks in time to see a man stepping out from between the trees with a rifle.  
  
“Oh, shit,” Rick mumbled, as two more men appeared in tow.  
  
As the horse carrying them took off at a pretty decent pace, the men from the trees seemed to notice Rick and the woman’s retreating forms atop the horse and suddenly rallied together.  
  
Rick stole another look back, barely making out the image of what looked to be five or six men aiming their guns in his and the woman’s direction. With his eyes going wide, Rick kicked his heels at the horse’s middle to urge it along faster and harder just as a single shot rang out from behind them but thankfully missed them.  
  
“Why the hell are those men after you? Why are they shooting at us?” Rick demanded.  
  
“Is it really important right now?” she asked, tensing against him as she gripped both the horn and his arm that was around her waist with each of her hands.  
  
“I’d like to know why I’m risking my life for a stranger.”  
  
“I promise to go into detail as soon as we put distance between us and them. Right now, let’s just get out of here alive.”  
  
Not having any qualms with that, Rick focused on guiding the horse to continue forward at more of a gallop and not go off course from being spooked by the extra gunfire that followed.

 

* * *

  
Within minutes, with having literal horse power available to them, they were able to put enough distance between them and those armed men. The woman urged Rick to slow down, reminding him that the dead would come wandering out at the sound of the horse clopping so hard and loud upon the pavement. They turned off the state road they’d been on and onto the more rustic main thoroughfare of the town, which was considerably smaller than Rick’s hometown, and his hometown was quite small to begin with. The few businesses in this town didn’t even have a second story. Everything was on one level.  
  
“That bar has sturdy-lookin’ posts. We can hitch up the horse there and take shelter inside,” Rick suggested, pointing out the building hosting two abandoned businesses; Shrugg’s Hardware on the left and The Carriage Bar, a local tavern, on the right.  
  
“This horse is our only mode of transportation and it’s a living creature. Leaving it out in the open is like a welcome buffet to any passing walkers,” the woman retorted. “We lose the horse and we’re stuck on foot, unless we find a car with plenty of gas.”  
  
Rick frowned, but she wasn’t wrong. “So what do  _you_  suggest?”  
  
“Bring the horse inside with us?” the woman shrugged.  
  
“Sounds like the beginning of a few jokes I know.”  
  
The woman smirked. “A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks—”  
  
“—‘Why the long face?’”  
  
As both chuckled for a moment, Rick brought the horse nearer to the front of the tavern and then braced himself to get down off the horse first. Once he’d succeeded in that task, he held up his hand to assist the woman with getting down as well; maintaining the obvious fact that he was ever the gentleman. Both winced as they stood on the ground beside the horse, but for different reasons. For Rick, he had just gotten used to riding the horse and now his thighs were a bit sore.  
  
“You okay?” he asked her, noticing the way she grimaced.  
  
“My feet are sore as fuck and I probably got blisters up the ass. I was running through the woods for a good while. Not exactly smooth terrain and I’ve never been much of a runner, but when push comes to shove...”  
  
“I hear ya.”  
  
Grabbing onto the horse’s reins he gestured for the woman to take them. When she obliged him, Rick removed his Colt Python from the holster at his right hip and approached the tavern’s double doors. Turning one of the handles, he found it was unlocked. Pushing the door on the right slowly open, he moved to step right in but the woman grabbed onto his short shirt sleeve and pulled him back.  
  
“What are you—new? Make a noise,” she urged. “Draw out anything that might be lurking inside. Never just walk right in. That’s how you get bit and die.”  
  
Looking over his shoulder at her, Rick nodded slightly and resumed his frown as he turned his attention back toward the interior of the tavern. He felt like an idiot, having been called out on not grasping the nuances of this new world he had woken up in, literally only a day ago. After all, there he was, dressed in his uniform, hat and all — a figure of authority, no less — and he hadn’t the experience anyone else had.  
  
With a muted sighed, Rick whistled and tapped the barrel of his Colt upon the doorframe. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he muttered, a good deal more audibly than his sigh. When nothing happened, when no sounds or movements from anything dead or alive echoed from within the tavern, Rick looked over his shoulder again at the woman and raised an eyebrow. “I think the coast is clear.”  
  
Lowering his colt, Rick stepped back from the door and took the reins back from the woman and let her step inside first. As she slowly and carefully disappeared into the dark interior, Rick coaxed the horse to follow him inside as well after opening up the door on the left; thankful both doors were tall and wide enough to accommodate the horse’s stature. Once they were all fully inside, Rick noted two loadbearing posts off to the left where he could tie up the horse while the woman quickly shut the doors behind them and then closed the curtains to the only one of the three sets of windows that was open. As Rick brought the horse over to the post, he first pushed aside a small, round table and its accompanying chairs; all of which were covered in a layer of dust. In fact, every surface inside the tavern was covered in a layer of dust.  
  
“Thanks again,” the woman spoke, “for earlier.”  
  
Rick shrugged as he looped the reigns around the post. “Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“My mama raised me to never rely on a man; that I never had to be some damsel in distress,” she continued, looking around and taking a seat at the bar, but facing Rick and the horse. “She taught me how to talk, walk, tie my shoelaces, how to cook, how to shoot a gun, how to hunt, how to change my own oil and change a tire. But most importantly, she taught me how to rely on myself first and foremost. And yet, here I am now, having had no choice but be that damned damsel in distress who lucked out in relying on a knight in shining armor who happened to be passing by at the right time. Though, actually, I s’pose you’re less knight in shining armor and more lawman in a cotton-polyester blend uniform.”  
  
Rick smirked and removed his hat; setting it on the table. Casting a look toward the doors, he gestured in their direction. “So what’s the story with those thugs? Why were they chasing you? More importantly, why were they  _shooting_?”  
  
“I’d seen ‘em before, a couple days ago. I was scavenging some house nearby my mama’s property. I don’t think they saw me, but they must’ve noticed someone that wasn’t them had been there. I guess they followed my tracks or something. I mean, it rained that day before so maybe I left footprints,” the woman began to explain with a shrug. “There were more of them then. I’m not exactly sure on the number, but either way I could tell they weren’t the good kind of survivors. They weren’t no knights in shining armor, that’s for sure. This morning they found my mama’s house, where I’d been staying since almost the beginning of all this. It was just a trailer home on two acres of land, but it was home. It’s where I grew up and where I felt I could be safest. So, this morning, those men found my mama’s house, as I was sayin’, and they must’ve known people were inside. They started hollerin’; just making a general racket that would’ve drawn out walkers. They shot out the windows of my mama’s truck, so she opened a window and aimed a rifle at them and told them to get off her property or she’d shoot. When they began to taunt her, she shot one of ‘em in the chest.”  
  
“Damn,” Rick murmured, taking a seat at the table.  
  
“My mama’s never been one to be fucked with. She tended bar all her adult life, not here, so she knew how to handle assholes from sober to drunk as a skunk. She had brass ball, my mama.” The woman smiled ruefully. “She could be so intimidating and took shit from no one. I make her sound like a hard-ass, and she  _was_. Lord Jesus was she ever. But my mama had a heart of gold, too, and would give you the shirt off her back in an instant if you were deserving of it.” With a sigh, the woman hung her head. “But I digress….”  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
“That trailer and that measly two acres of land, and that truck, were the only possessions in this world that my mama owned, and like any God-fearing redneck, she was gonna defend her shit. Basically, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” she carried on, slowly beginning to lean forward and massage her aching thighs from all that running. “So, mama shot first and she was within her rights. They were trespassing and destroying personal property, after all. But then they shot back. Mama ducked and told me to grab the other shotgun from above the couch.”  
  
The woman fell silent and stared off.  
  
Rick was not blind to how her face seemed to contort into utter grief. “You don’t gotta go into detail of whatever happened next.”  
  
Either she didn’t hear him or didn’t mind talking about it, because the woman continued on. “Just as I turned around and was about to ask my mama where the box of ammo was, because the second shotgun was never loaded, I watched as a bullet pierced through the trailer and shot my mom right in the face.”  
  
Rick finally noticed some of red spots staining her shirt and determined it must be arterial spray.  
  
“Back of her head just exploded like a volcano across the wall directly behind her; ruined her favorite velvet painting of Dolly Parton. I just froze. I’d just watched my mama die and I suddenly forgot how to use a gun. I could’ve picked up hers and continued to shoot at those assholes in her place. But I froze. I was scared. I didn’t want to die, too. I could tell they were moving closer to the trailer, so I ducked down and basically crawled to the bathroom and then climbed out the bathroom window. As soon as my feet touched ground, I took off running and I barely looked back.” Finally looking back up, she glanced over at Rick and found a sympathetic frown ingrained on his face. “Obviously, they realized someone escaped the house and followed me. And, well, there you have it. That’s how my day’s gone so far.”  
  
After a moment, Rick leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he remarked; not really knowing what else to say other than to fall back on the tried and true expression he’d given, several times in the past while on the job, to those who had lost their loved ones in an accident, suicide, or to acts of violence.  
  
“What about you?” she asked, gesturing to him. “What’s a lawman doin’ riding off into the sunset with an arsenal on his back?”  
  
“I’m looking for my family,” Rick replied, without missing a beat.  
  
“When was the last time you saw them?”  
  
“I dunno. Two months ago?” He shrugged. “I wasn’t able to keep track of time, where I was.”  
  
“And where was that?”  
  
“In a coma.”  
  
The woman knitted her brow together. “Seriously?”  
  
Rick nodded. “Seriously,” he confirmed. “I was shot on the job; bleeding out by the side of the road. I don’t much remember anything after that. I mean, at some point I was aware that my best friend, who was also my partner, was leaning over me with flowers in hand. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in this hospital room and there’s this vase full of dead flowers on the table beside me.”  
  
“Holy shit.”  
  
“The world ended and I was asleep during all of it,” Rick remarked, almost bitterly. “When I made it home, my family was gone. Clothes were missing, even family albums. I have no idea where they went and then I met this man named Morgan and his son Duane who were squatting in my neighbor’s house. Morgan changed my bandage, gave me food to eat and explained how the world had changed. This morning I got us all hot showers and the police station, since it has its own backup generator. Then I grabbed this clean uniform, enough weapons I could carry and gave others to Morgan and his son. Morgan said the radios were telling people to go to Atlanta. Survivor camps were being set up there, so my wife and son might’ve gone there.”  
  
The woman chuckled under her breath and shook her head.  
  
“What’s so funny?” Rick demanded; narrowing his gaze at her.  
  
“How long ago did you wake up from your coma?”  
  
“Yesterday afternoon.”  
  
She chuckled a bit more audibly. “Shit, you really  _are_  brand new, aren’t you?”  
  
“Why? What do you know?”  
  
“If your family somehow made it to Atlanta, they’re probably dead. I’m not trying to be a heartless asshole about, but that’s the truth.”  
  
“And why is  _that_  the truth?”  
  
“Because Atlanta was bombed,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “Military planes flew over the city and dropped fucking napalm on it. Anyone stuck inside the city when it happened is dead or dead and turned. If your wife and son were lucky, they would’ve been caught outside the city and turned around to go someplace else.”  
  
“And how do you know this?” Rick questioned; suddenly on the defensive. He stood up abruptly, startling the horse a little. “You said yourself you were at your mama’s trailer since the beginning. I know from Morgan the radio broadcasts eventually stopped.”  
  
“I said I was at my mama’s since  _almost_  the beginning,” she replied, just as defensively. “I  _lived_ in Atlanta up until a month ago. I saw how bad it was getting. The soldiers sent to guard the refugee camps were bailing to get home to their own families. The amount of walking dead was growing. Camps were getting overrun, family were  _literally_  getting torn apart. FEMA dropped the ball worse than when Katrina hit New Orleans five years ago. My mama did raise a fool. I knew shit was only gonna get worse so I got out of there as quick as I could. When my car got stuck in a traffic jam on the I-85 along with a shit ton of others trying to flee the city, I got out of my car and continued on foot. As soon as I cleared the highway, I hotwired a car I found abandoned and drove the rest of the way to my mama’s.”  
  
Rick’s shoulders slumped and he sighed heavily. “I don’t know where else my family might’ve gone,” he admitted. “My wife was an only child and her parents moved to Mesa years ago for her father’s health because of the dry air. My parents are gone and my brother went traveling abroad before I got shot. In fact, he called me a week before I was shot to say he’d arrived in Barcelona.” Rick shook his head and began to wander over toward one of the windows. Pushing aside the curtain slightly, he peered outside for a moment and then looked back at the woman whose name he still didn’t know. Though, to be fair, she didn’t know his name yet either. “If what you say really is true, and if my family got away from Atlanta before it was bombed, then I don’t know where to begin to look for them.”  
  
With a sigh of her own, she slid slowly off the bar stool; wincing at the soreness in her feet. “Well, whichever way you choose to go, I’ll go with you,” she offered. “I mean, we just met, but you’re quite literally all I got now. You and the horse, actually.” Off Rick’s smirk, she added, “You helped me when you could’ve kept on going, so I’d say I owe you one.”  
  
“I appreciate that,” he replied, giving her a nod of thanks.  
  
“So, what do I call you anyway, besides The Lawman?”  
  
Rick smirked. “I was just thinking the same thing. I’ve been calling you ‘The Woman’ in my head.”  
  
“That’s a lot nicer than some things I’ve been called in the past.”  
  
Raising his hand, still ever the gentleman, Rick held it out to her. “I’m Rick. Rick Grimes.”  
  
Looking at his hand for a moment and then accepting his handshake, she replied, “I’m Charlotte Reid. But you can call me Charlie.”  
  
“Well, despite these circumstances, it’s nice to meet you, Charlie,” Rick murmured with a polite smile before stealing a discreet glance out the window again. “Now,” he continued, growing serious and looking back at her, “what do we do about these thugs that have followed us here?”

 


	2. A Brave and Startling Truth

__

_We, this people, on this small and drifting planet_  
_Whose hands can strike with such abandon_  
_That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living_  
_Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness_  
— Maya Angelou, 'A Brave and Startling Truth'

* * *

  
“Sonofa _bitch_.”  
  
With a frown and a few more choice expletives mumbled under breath that made Rick smirk and raise an eyebrow, Charlie stepped up beside him; walking with a slight limp in her step as she went because of her sore feet and legs. Carefully, she peered between the slight break in the curtains while Rick moved over half a step to give her the room to do so. Sure as shit, appearing on the corner of the intersection diagonal from them, having come from the same direction Rick and Charlie had happened along, were two of that half dozen of thugs that had been chasing her through those woods. She only recognized one of the two, though. She specifically remembered his face from outside her mother’s trailer that morning because he was the only one of the bunch that, in under different circumstances and in the former world, she would’ve chatted up in a bar and likely gone home with if she’d had enough to drink of that liquid courage.  
  
“My mama killed at  _least_  one of ‘em and then they killed my mama. You’d think they’d call it even after that. Eye for an eye, even though mama was within her rights,” she grumbled, stepping back from the window.  
  
“How many shots did your mother get before…?”  
  
Charlie looked at Rick and shrugged. “It was an old Western Field Model 50 pump shotgun, so five in barrel and one in the chamber, but she didn’t fire all of ‘em because she didn’t make a move to reload,” she rattled off, stalking over to Rick duffel bag of firearms. “Not that she was given the  _chance_  to reload.”  
  
Stepping away from the window, Rick sidled up beside Charlie and pulled out a box of shotgun shells and set them down on the table beside his hat. “Well, there’s only two of them right now, but we should assume the others are close by or on their way. If I were them, I’d start checking each building for you or try to draw you out.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing you’re you and not them,” Charlie quipped in a low voice while removing one of the pump shotguns from his bag, similar to the one her mother had been firing that morning. Taking a few of the shotgun ammo Rick had presented and loading them into the gun without a hitch, she threw him a look as she completed her thought process. “Otherwise I’d shoot you.”  
  
Rick and Charlie looked each other in the eye. While she successfully conveyed she was very serious with her comment, both knew she had no intention of following through with the threat because she didn’t view him as one.  
  
“I promise not to give you a reason to,” Rick replied with a slight smirk. Checking the cylinder of his Colt, three of the six rounds were missing; having used them that morning on three different walkers. Firstly upon his former co-worker Leon Basset, secondly upon the decayed woman who was no more than an upper torso he’d first encountered when he’d left the hospital yesterday, and then lastly and most recently upon that little blonde girl at the gas station. Having a child of his own at the same age as that girl made that kill of the three the most heartbreaking. Removing another box of ammo that fit his Colt, he filled the three empty chambers and then returned the cylinder into place. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance of reasoning with those men.”  
  
Charlie gave him a withering look. “You better not be serious. Those aren’t good men out there. Those twats didn’t have to chase after me. They were  _hunting_  me. They  _followed_  us here.” Charlie scoffed. “Good men don’t do that kind of shit.” After a moment, she softened her gaze a little and nudged his arm in afterthought. “Good men do what  _you_  did. They help the girl. They don’t hunt her like she’s some prized pig that escaped the county fair.”  
  
Absorbing what she said, Rick fell silent and returned to the window. Crouching down, he peered carefully between the curtains from just over the sill. “They’re still just standing there across the intersection, having a literal cigarette break,” Rick announced, just above a whisper. “I think we should wait and see if they walk on by and continue on their way or if they decide to check any of these buildings before we decide our next move.”  
  
“You think this building has roof access out back?”  
  
Rick, caught off guard by her question, turned and look at her with a blank face until her question registered. “These old buildings? I doubt it. Why?” Rick paused. “What’re you thinkin’?  
  
“That if I could get up to the roof I could see better and be at more of an advantage to shoot those fuckers before we give them the chance to just continue merrily along their way.” Charlie was clearly admonishing his suggestion of basically waiting it out. “Had I gotten away fair and square and had they  _not_  chased after me, shot at me and then also you, and not given up by followin’ us here, I would’ve been able to  _possibly_  accept bygones bein’ bygones, but that ain’t what they did, now is it? They’re bad men lookin’ for trouble and to purposely cause harm, and I mean to give ‘em what for. They don’t deserve to walk on by unawares.”  
  
Rick looked away from Charlie and back out the windows from between the curtains. “Well, while I don’t typically condone killing the living, they  _were_  shooting at us.” Noting that both men still remained in the same spot, Rick felt suddenly antsy. “And they’re not moving. It’s possible they’re waiting on their friends to arrive. If we wait too long to make a move, we could end up outnumbered. But that’s also assuming they really are the only two men out there and we’re not surrounded on all sides by the others.”  
  
“Okay there, Debbie Downer,” Charlie teased. “Probably best we check whatever back entrance this place has and if the coast it clear.”  
  
Rick nodded and stood back up; careful not to bump the curtain because any obvious movement from inside the tavern could draw immediate attention from those men across the way. For a moment, he just stood there, chewing his bottom lip in thought and then finishing off whatever thought he was thinking with a heavy sigh. “There was that trellis surrounded by overgrowth between this building and the one next door that I noticed when we first rode up. Going out the back door and coming around the right of the building will bring us out onto the main street there and out into the open. We’ll be sitting ducks. But…if we go out the back and go around the  _left_ of the building, we’ll be able to hide within that overgrowth; hidden but able to shoot more easily.”  
  
Charlie narrowed her gaze at Rick as the horse blew a low snort from its nose and began to shift its weight around; likely just bored. Both peeled their attention away from one another for a moment to make sure the horse was not about to make any more obvious noises that would give away their location. Only when they were sure the horse was content did they return their gazes back upon each other.   
  
“I can tell you’re not one hundred percent behind doin’ any of this but I want you to know I appreciate it a lot,” she expressed. “My mama was the only family I had. She was the only person that mattered to me. I thought that if I was gonna lose her in this new world that it was gonna be because she got bit by one of those walkers, and not because of some very much alive assholes.”  
  
Rick chuckled briefly, looking down. “Sorry. I’m not laughing about your loss. Just…you call them walkers. That man, Morgan, who helped me…that’s what he called them.” Bringing his eyes back upon her, he asked, “Was that the agreed upon term going around on the TV and radio broadcasts before everything went silent?”  
  
“I heard different people callin’ ‘em different things,” Charlie shrugged. “Walkers just felt right. I mean, that’s what they’re always doin’, right? When not chowin’ down on somebody’s limbs, that is. Walkin’ around. Walkin’ on and on without knowin’ where they’re goin’. Walkin’ on without ever needin’ to stop because they’re tired and need to, because they’re dead.”  
  
“I s’pose that makes sense.” Stepping back over to his duffel bag, he pulled out a second shotgun for himself and then set down a Glock 17 upon the table along with a third box of ammo. “Load this gun and keep it on you in case the shotgun jams or you run out of shotgun shells. These bullets will fit this gun.”  
  
Setting down upon a neighboring table the Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun she’d been holding, Charlie snickered and reached for the Glock. “How many shots you think I’m gonna need to take? I told you my mama taught me how to shoot a gun and how to hunt. I might’ve dropped the ball and my weapon this morning when I lost my mama, but that’s ‘cause I was scared and devastated by what had just happened,” she remarked, loading the gun as she talked. “I mean, I’m still devastated and eventually I’ll let myself feel it fully, but right now I’m not scared anymore. I’m just angry now and my hands are steady.” Tucking the gun into her back pocket, she added, “These guys fucked with the wrong redneck woman.”  
  
Rick raised an eyebrow at her again. He wasn’t used to being around women like her who liberally swore like a sailor and it rather amused him. In a way, she reminded him a bit of a female version of Shane. All that was missing was her going into detail about her past sexual conquests in an attempt to embarrass him or make him jealous like Shane did, all while wearing a shit eating grin.  
  
“Okay, so…we gonna do this?” Charlie questioned as she lifted up her shotgun. “We go out back, quieter than a pair of church mice and hide in some bushes. Then what? I mean, I wanna shoot ‘em before any others might show up, but what if they stay put where they are now until that happens? They might not be close enough from where we’ll be.”  
  
Tucking his Colt into its holster, Rick lifted his own shotgun the same and cast a brief glance at the horse. “I thought you said your mama taught you how to shoot a gun and to hunt?” Without waiting for a response, he added, “You gotta work with the spot you're in as not to disturb what you’re after. Patience is a virtue.”  
  
Charlie sighed. “You gonna take lead on this or am I, so I know what I’m doin’?”  
  
Rick wanted to continue being the gentleman, and he felt the right thing to do would be to go first out the back of this tavern, but she also seemed to not truly care, one way or the other, who went first or last. The way that she stared back at him with firmness in her gaze and restlessness in her heart assured him he could take a step back. As she had expressed before, her mother hadn’t raised her to depend solely on a man and this situation was no exception, apparently.  
  
“Ladies first,” he finally replied, gesturing to the narrow hallway that likely led back to some bathrooms, possibly an office and storage space in the back.  
  
It would make sense for there to be storage in the very back, for the unloading of cases of beers and different liquors. Not too long ago this establishment probably saw its deliveries arrive in that small parking lot behind the tavern that Rick had been able to glimpse earlier from atop the horse. There really was no reason to believe there  _wouldn’t_  be a back entrance for them to slip out of.  
  
Without hesitation, Charlie walked first down the hall; keeping the shotgun level with her chest as they walked one by one down through the darkness. They both paid little mind to the doors at their right, not caring what rooms lied behind them, and instead placed their full focus upon the door at the very end marked as for “employees only.” Turning the knob and finding it unlocked, Charlie pushed the door open with the end of her gun’s barrel. Minimal light from barred windows filtered inside what looked to be a rather large storage room that covered the rear expanse of both the tavern and the hardware store the tavern shared a wall with. Going forward carefully, Charlie looked down to note there were a handful of wooden steps to descend, which creaked with each step she took. At the bottom, she scanned her eyes around and clicked her tongue upon the roof of her mouth a couple times just in case anything undead was, by chance, lurking in the shadows; dormant with the possibility of regaining mobility at the sound and scent of the living wandering around.  
  
As Rick followed right behind her, he took in the sight of some metal shelving units with boxes and old bottles on them, wooden chairs that seemed to be broken which had most likely once been used inside the tavern, metal folding chairs stacked along a wall, an oscillating fan, and there was even an old, cast iron wood burning stove. Boxes and boxes were also everywhere and Rick doubted most of it had anything to do with the bar at this point. Perhaps whoever originally owned the place was a packrat who stored more shit than he or she had room for elsewhere. Every surface, the concrete floor included was covered in several layers of dust. The best part of it all, which they both noticed, was the set of double doors with grime-covered glass windows that led to that back parking lot. They had certainly lucked out there.  
  
Shuffling along beside her, Rick moved to take his turn in taking lead and reached the set of double doors to their left first. Once again, these doors were unlocked like the others and he mimicked Charlie in pushing them open with the muzzle of his shotgun and then stepped out into daylight. Directly in front of them was another step down into the parking lot and a paneled metal wall of sorts with a dumpster alongside it, closer to the street and, in reality, it wasn’t much of a parking lot at all. It was just an oversized alley, apparently. However, none of that was important. What was was getting them both out and around the building to their left where there was a bit of an open, grassy area leading toward some country side street, but then, more immediately, to the overgrown area between the building they were stepping out of and whatever building was next door.  
  
Turning to Charlie, Rick nodded to that overgrown area and let her head there first; following right behind her. Crouching down out of instinct, they moved forward between both buildings with their footfalls muffled by the softness of grass and no shadows were cast since the trees and overgrowth, as well as the building, blocked the sun at the angle from where it hung in the sky. Upon approaching the road the tavern faced onto, Rick and Charlie hunkered down a bit further and made sure to keep themselves shielded from view by way of the large bushes.  
  
“Can you see ‘em?” Charlie asked in a whisper. “Are they still where we last saw them on that corner?”  
  
Rick took a few steps forward and then crouched down carefully within the wooden trellis which was the only opening for them to the road. Holding his gun upright, he discreetly leaned a bit further out and turned his head left to catch a glimpse of both men.  
  
“Shit,” he muttered, whipping his head back and stepping back closer to Charlie. “Two more have arrived from up that other street running perpendicular to this one. They must’ve all split up to cover more ground to find us and now they’re finally catching up with each other.”   
  
Charlie’s heart sank a little. “We could make a run for it,” she suggested, despite wanting very much to kill every last one of these men. “We’re officially outnumbered. As soon as we would each take a shot, regardless of whether or not those shots would be successful, there are two others we’d have to worry about contendin’ with and that’s assumin’ the other two or three of ‘em still missin’ don’t show up right away. We can head back the way we came, toward the back of the building but then cut across that little field to that side street just there.” As she pointed in the direction she meant, she kept her gaze upon Rick and noted how he followed where she was pointing. “We abandon the horse. We just go on foot and run that way. They shouldn’t be able to see us from where they are if we go now.”  
  
“The rest of the guns and ammo are still inside the bar.” Rick shook his head. “No. We do this and we do this now, but we’re gonna need to create a diversion to split them up again.” Looking back toward that glorified back alley, Rick nodded. “You stay here. I’ll go around that metal wall and come up toward the main street. I’ll make a noise and draw them my way—lure them away from the intersection. As soon as you see them coming my way and you get your window, take the shot. They’ll probably shoot back, but you’re plenty covered here and they’ll get confused. Then I’ll take a shot and bring their focus back on my direction, which is when you’ll take another or as many shots as you can or need to, and I’ll do the same.”  
  
For as tough as Charlie was and could be, she was beginning to lack the courage to see this plan through. “If I die today and you don’t, will you bury me?” she implored. “I don’t wanna be left out like someone’s forgotten trash on the side of road.”  
  
Rick leaned in closer to her face and placed a hand upon her shoulder. “I won’t let you die today. You hear me?”  
  
After brief hesitation on her part, Charlie nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”  
  
“Okay, good.” Moving to the other side of her, Rick stood up. “When you hear me make a noise, take your shot.”  
  
“What kind of noise?”  
  
Rick shrugged. “You’ll know it when you hear it.” Repeating himself, he said to her, “That’s when you take your shot. Take it for your mama.”  
  
Her resolving steeling once more with the renewed hope of avenging her mother’s death, Charlie nodded and then watched as Rick quickly shuffled off toward the back alley. As soon as he disappeared from view around that paneled metal wall, Charlie turned her attention back to the men at the intersection and carefully inched herself closer to within the trellis where Rick had just been previously. She careened her head to the left to catch a glimpse of the four men and determine how far away from her they were so she would know how and where to aim her shotgun.  
  
She hadn’t heard anything from Rick yet but the men were already on the move.  
  
“Maybe they aren’t even here,” one of them spoke. “I’d rather hide in any of the houses around here than any of these buildings. Houses have beds and more to offer.”  
  
“And that’s what Ian and Nick are checking out. Either of these roads is the way those two would’ve come and both roads merge here,” another one of the four men spoke. “And did you see a place a horse could’ve been hid around any of those houses we just passed? ‘Cause I didn’t. Any one of these buildings could hide a fucking horse. Hell, this bar alone has posts in the front here.”  
  
Charlie tensed. She could tell the men were walking closer to the bar and if they got close and attempted to look inside they would sure as hell see the horse, along with Rick’s duffel bag of guns and his hat he’d left on the table. They'd recognize all three things from when Rick grabbed Charlie up and they ran off together.  
  
Not wanting the men to get too close, Charlie prepared to shoot first before Rick could distract them with whatever sound he had up his sleeve. However, she would not need to.  
  
Just as she swiveled her hips to take aim, banging along the metal wall resounded from the back alley followed by a very audible wolf whistle. Stealing a peek, Charlie could glimpse that the four men were instantly drawn to the noise, not unlike how the dead were. As soon as their backs were turned from the tavern and Charlie in general, she leaned out from around the trellis and removed the safety. She took aim at the man closest to her, and even then he was probably fifty feet away.  
  
Inhaling a deep breath and then, as she slowly released it, Charlie pulled the trigger and the man on which she was aiming fell forward as her shot ripped into him from his back; propelling his face first upon the ground. She couldn’t relish the moment for but a second because his buddies were instantly on the defense. Realizing their comrade had been shot in the back, it only made sense that the shooter would’ve come from Charlie’s direction and, obviously, they would be correct in that assumption. As she quickly slipped behind the bushes before the surviving three men turned around, Charlie tensed up again and wondered if she should just make a run for toward where Rick had gone.  
  
But then a new shot rang out, followed almost immediately by a second. And then by Rick’s voice.  
  
“Hey! Over here!” Rick bellowed.  
  
Shuffling like a squirrel about to burrow for safety, Charlie squeezed her body between the outer brick wall of the building and one of the bushes. She held her shotgun upright as she snuck a peek to see if the surviving three had taken the bait and breathed a sigh of relief when they had. Using the brick wall as a brace, Charlie pushed herself up to her feet and peered discreetly around the corner to determine where each of the men were headed just as she saw one of them, that was more in the open of the intersection and heading down the main street toward the sound of Rick’s voice, get suddenly shot in the head and fall back upon the pavement.  
  
With two of the four men currently down, and at least one of them dead, the other two men moved to retaliate at Rick, but that was when Charlie took her moment and stepped out from the safety of the building. Standing with the overgrowth to her back and her feet parted and firmly planted, she raised her shotgun again and then took a few steps forward.   
  
Suddenly, all she could think about was her mother and how her mother held no fear in her heart as she took on these men from within her trailer. She thought about how strong and brave her mother was; up to the last moments of her life and that was the woman Charlie wanted to be. It was the kind of woman she’d  _always_  wanted to be and that her mother had molded her to be every day of her twenty-seven years of life on this planet.  
  
“Hey! Dickheads!” she called out with a sneer. As one of them turned at the sound of her voice and with their own gun quickly raised at her, Charlie pulled the trigger again and suddenly there seemed to be a cacophony of gunfire from multiple directions.  
  
Her shot hadn’t been immediately fatal; only piercing the second last guy in the side of his abdomen and because of it, the shot he’d taken at her fortunately missed her by good six or so inches. The fact that his shot had gotten that close at all pissed her off even more than she already was. Any one of these men could’ve been the one whose bullet had pierced through the trailer and blasted through her mother’s face; blowing the contents from within her skull out the back of her head onto the wall behind her and that damned velvet Dolly Parton painting. This man that had shot at her could be the one who had killed her mom for all she knew or maybe that man was one of the two already dead on the ground or maybe it was one of the men still missing from the group that had gathered at the intersection. Either way, Charlie was beyond pissed.  
  
As the man went to shoot her again, his surviving buddy fired in Rick’s direction down the main street a couple times and a pained yelp could be heard echoing off the buildings. Charlie prepared to duck out of the way from the oncoming shot that was about to come her way, but then guy’s buddy went down like a bag of bricks from a close-range gunshot to the head, judging by the power with which the back of his head burst. Fragments of skull bone, hair, blood and brain matter sprayed the dusty pavement behind him and a moment later his body fell backward with his arms and legs stretched out. The man aiming his gun at Charlie made the fatal mistake of looking back at his last fallen friend that was present and found Rick rounding the corner from the tavern’s side of the building, aiming his Colt Python. The man was stuck between a rock and hard place what with being the one who was now outnumbered due to both Rick and Charlie aiming their respective weapons at him.  
  
“Put your gun down,” Rick demanded; gritting the words through clenched teeth.  
  
“Hey, man, you don’t gotta kill me. I give up,” the man assured; going as far as to crouch down and lay his gun on the ground and then hold his hands up in surrender.  
  
“How many more of you are there?”  
  
“How many were following you two here or in general?”  
  
Charlie looked past the man to Rick and noticed that his right shoulder was bleeding. The yelp she had heard must’ve come from him. Dragging her eyes away and focusing on the man directly in front of her, she narrowed her eyes and scowled. “Both.”  
  
With a shaky sigh, the man swallowed back a lump in his throat. “Seven of us today, following you,” he answered. “About thirty in total. Well, now about twenty-six thanks to you two.”  
  
“Ya’ll trespassed onto my mama’s property. She gave y’all a chance to leave and y’all responded by causin’ a scene and shootin’ up her truck. She had every right to shoot and kill one of you,” Charlie growled as she took a step closer to the man and aimed the shotgun at his face. “Then one of ya’ll shot up her trailer and one of you killed her. I had to watch it happen. My own mama; the only person in this world that I loved, and I had to watch her die. I don’t know which one of you did it and I could’ve let it slide, y’know, because I ran. But you assholes made the decision to  _follow_  me and  _shoot_  at me, and then at my new friend here when he happened by and helped me. And even  _then_  I could’ve let it slide but y’all  _still_  followed with the intent on making this world even shittier than it already is.” Charlie scoffed and shook her head. “The dead are already tryin’ to kill us. Why do y’all motherfuckers gotta make it worse? Society’s already crumbled. Why kick it when it’s down instead of doin’ somethin’ productive with your worthless lives and build society back up?”  
  
“It wasn’t my decisi—”  
  
Charlie took another step forward and he shut right up mid-sentence. “I ain’t lookin’ for your fuckin’ excuses. I just want you to hear me out before I kill you.”  
  
As the man furrowed his brow and almost looked as if he might shit his pants, Charlie pulled the trigger and shot him in the forehead. Like his friend that died before him, the contents of his head sprayed the pavement behind him before his body hit the ground. When his body did slump lifelessly onto its side, only then did Charlie look away from him and back to Rick who was stepping cautiously over to her.  
  
“The gunfire has drawn walkers,” he muttered, looking down at the body at her feet and then warily up at her. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” she nodded. “But you’re not. You were hit.”  
  
Rick shrugged, wincing at the gesture. “It’s just a graze. I’ll live to see another day,” he replied. “We should get back inside the bar, though.”  
  
With a nod, Charlie stepped away from him, lowering the shotgun and walking toward the tavern’s front door and pulling it open. As she stepped inside, she nearly jumped out of her skin; having forgotten for a moment that the horse was still there. The gunfire must’ve riled it up a bit and frightened it, judging by how antsy it seemed and the steaming pile of shit on the floor. Avoiding stepping in any of it, Charlie walked up to the table where Rick’s duffel bag of guns and ammo was along with his hat. A moment later, when Rick came inside, shutting the door behind him, Charlie put the safety back on her shotgun and then set it down upon a neighboring table.  
  
“We won’t be able to stay here much longer,” she announced, walking over to the bar and moving behind it.   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. Not just ‘cause all that gunfire and shoutin’ has garnered the unwanted attention of walkers,” Charlie replied, crouching down out of Rick’s view. “I heard those men talkin’ when you went ‘round the back of this place. Two guys from their group are out checkin’ houses in this area just in case that’s where we might’ve hid. We don’t know how far off they are right now. For all we know they’ve heard the gunfire, too, and are fixin’ to head this way to see what’s up.” As she popped up from behind the bar, she slapped a plastic first aid kit upon the bar top, which kicked up some dust in the process. “You think you can wait a while before we patch up that graze of yours?”  
  
Rick nodded. “How’d you know there’d be a first aid kit back there?”  
  
“I said my mama was a barmaid, right? Well, bein’ that she was a barmaid and a single mother, it kinda goes without sayin’ that I grew up in bars.” Missing his raised eyebrow at the insight she’d just given him into her childhood, Charlie came around the bar and back to the tables; tossing the kit into the duffel bag along with the other guns and boxes of ammo. Looking up at Rick, she seemed a bit jittery and what gave it away was how her hands were slightly shaking. “There were always first aid kits ‘cause people were always gettin’ drunk and gettin’ in fights. Mama didn’t like havin’ to call the cops on feisty patrons. They were usually good folk not really meanin’ to do any harm, but sometimes shit would get outta hand, so mama would have to kick a few people out and tell ‘em to go home and sober up or patch up anyone that got hurt.”  
  
Rick narrowed his gaze at her and looked down at her hands as her fingers tapped along the back of a chair. “You alright?”  
  
“Hmm—yeah. Why?”  
  
“You just seem anxious.”  
  
“Well, we got a lot to get away from right now and we shouldn’t be dawdlin’ anymore, so…”  
  
“Alright,” Rick nodded, leaving it at that. Picking up the duffel bag, he gestured to her shotgun. When she handed it over, he put it into the bag. Before holstering his Colt, though, he reloaded it with six more bullets; having wasted the six on the men he’d shot at when the shotgun just wasn’t doing the trick.  
  
“What happened to your shotgun?”  
  
“Dropped it when my shoulder got hit.”  
  
“Wanna go out back and get it before we leave?” she asked.  
  
Rick shook his head. “Nah. It’s just one shotgun. We got plenty enough right here. You still got your handgun?”  
  
“Yeah.” As if to prove her point, she patted her ass where she still had it shoved into her back pocket.  
  
“Good.” Lifting the duffel bag up, he threw it around his left shoulder and then stepped over to the horse, which seemed a bit put off by him. Raising his hands calmly, Rick approached the animal more slowly. “It’s alright. It’s alright. It’s just me. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” Stroking its neck, Rick pursed his lips and made a repetitive tsk-ing inside his mouth. When it appeared that the horse wasn’t about to buck or bray, Rick smirked and began to untie the reins from around the loadbearing post. “C’mon, girl.”  
  
“I’m sure its penis says otherwise,” Charlie teased.  
  
Rick was about to bend at the knees to confirm that, since it hadn’t been something he had bothered looking for when he first found the horse and saddled it up. Instead, he trusted her words to be true. “Alright, then. C’mon, boy,” he amended, leading the horse toward the double front doors.  
  
Going ahead of them, Charlie pushed both doors open and let Rick lead the horse outside first, but then she doubled back inside for a moment. When Rick turned and found her not there, he paused just outside the doors and craned his neck to look inside the tavern just as Charlie came sauntering out, holding his hat in her hands.  
  
“You almost forgot this,” she stated; reaching up and planting it atop his head.  
  
With a small smile and a nod of gratitude, Rick gestured for her to climb on up onto the saddle once they moved out from under the building’s wooden overhang. The bodies of the four men were lying around them and there were several walkers headed their way from different direction and getting closer with each passing moment. With little time to waste, Charlie grabbed back of the saddle with one hand and the horn with the other. Hooking one foot into the stirrup, she pulled herself up and threw her opposite leg over to the other side of the horse.  
  
“Scoot up,” was all Rick said as after she got situated on the saddle.  
  
Once she shifted closer to the horn, Rick wrapped the reins around his wrist and kicked her foot free of the stirrup so he could use it to pull himself. As soon as he had planted himself down upon the saddle behind her, once again making it a tight and uncomfortable fit for both of them, Rick adjusted the strap of the duffel bag so that it wouldn’t slip off his good shoulder, and then he unraveled reins from his wrist. Charlie looked down, gripping the horn as Rick’s arms appeared on either side of her as he moved to hold the reins in both hands.   
  
“Hold on tight now,” Rick muttered into her hair before leaning his head to the side to get a better view of the road before them.  
  
Those roads before them were the directions both pairs of men had come from as well as themselves not too long ago. Obviously, it wouldn’t be smart to go back that way lest they run into the other two men out there that Charlie had heard being mentioned checking houses in the area. What made sense was going in any of the opposite directions; either west down the main street in the direction of the back of the tavern or south down the road they were currently on, toward a more forested unknown.  
  
In the end, Rick pulled the reins and cued the horse to head south; picking up speed to avoid the approaching walkers and to put some much needed distance between them and the tavern.  
  
As their pace picked up, Rick looked back over his shoulder and saw something that confused him, but chose to turn back forward on what was most important, and that was getting away.

 

* * *

  
No more than an hour later, after traveling down an average country road, they’d come upon a small white church on their right; the Southern Baptist Church of Holy Light, according to its sign out front, complete with a with a smaller sign attached to it, announcing that bikers were welcome. Off to the side of the church was an attached building, likely containing some sort of social hall downstairs and Christian education classrooms or offices upstairs like any other church. Beyond the church and its attached building was the church’s cemetery.  
  
“This looks as fine a place as any to me,” Rick muttered, looking at the front of the church and cueing the horse to veer right and head on over. “We’re gonna have to tie the horse up outside to those railings. I don’t think it’d be feasible to get it up all those stairs and in through those doors.”  
  
“There’s windows at the front,” Charlie pointed out. “We can keep an eye on him from there.”  
  
As they made it over to the front steps, Rick carefully climbed down; removing the duffel bag and setting it down upon one of the stairs’ tiered retaining walls. He waited for Charlie to climb down after him and then tied the reins to one of the railings, good and tight.  
  
“We should find a bucket and some water so the horse doesn’t get thirsty. I’m not sure what we can feed it, though,” Charlie shrugged, but then pointed to the side of the steps. “Maybe it can chomp on that grass right there or that little bush.”  
  
“Yeah, we probably should look for something for him,” Rick agreed. “For us, too.”  
  
Reaching for the bag, Rick was cut off by Charlie who grabbed it first. “Go on. I got it,” she insisted.  
  
Without a word but a simple nod of his head, Rick made his way up the stairs ahead of her. Reaching for one of the two red doors, the one on the left which was the only one with a knob, Rick turned the knob and pushed the door open. Slowly, he poked his head in and step inside to find it not only rather well lit, but that there were three people sitting upright in separate pews from one another and facing forward.  
  
“Hello?” he called out curiously as Charlie stepped inside behind him and smacked him in the back.  
  
Just as he turned to glare at her, the three people in the pews turned around; revealing themselves to be walkers. When Rick turned back and gave them his attention, his shoulders slumped.  
  
“This would be easier and less noisy to take care of if we had knives or machetes,” Charlie remarked, setting the duffel bag down and crouching down over it to remove the shotgun she’d used earlier and then another for Rick as she passed it up to him. “We shouldn’t waste the bullets on 'em,” she suggested, nodding at the three walkers that were now slipping out of their respective pews and coming up the center aisle toward Rick and her. “Bash their heads in with the butt of the guns. Blunt trauma works.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Rick assured, turning his shotgun upside down and gripping the barrel with both hands.  
  
Not waiting on Charlie to stand back up and join him, Rick stalked forward and cracked the first walker across the head like he was swinging a bat. While the walker hadn’t been killed, at least it went down and bought Rick extra time to deal with the second walker, this one a female with what looked like some sort of soiled doily atop her head and hanging down over her undead eyes.  
  
Coming up along the aisle to the right, Charlie whistled for the third walker toward the front that was wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and loosened tie, and for some reason reminded her of actor Jeffrey Tambor. Having mirrored the way Rick held his shotgun, Charlie came stepping into the same aisle “Jeffrey” was in. When he turned to face her, teetering to the side in the process, Charlie raised her shotgun over her head and brought the butt crashing down over his head in one fell swoop. The walker dropped to its knees and, upon a second blow to its skull, dropped backwards to the floor. Not satisfied he was completely down and out, she whacked the butt of the shotgun a few more times across the walker’s face, easily bashing it in from its state of decay.  
  
When she finally turned away from “Jeffrey” and over to Rick, Charlie found him kicking the female walker in the stomach to keep her at bay while he tried finishing off the male walker. Stepping over “Jeffrey”, she entered the center aisle, took a few steps closer to Rick and then swung her shotgun at the female walker. Its head snapped to the side, causing its moldy flesh to literally rip; exposing rotting ligaments in the neck and the bones from the cervical column. A second swing tore the head clean off it shoulders and although the body collapsed and no longer posed a threat, the severed head was still chomping at the bit from where it had fallen upon the seat of a pew.  
  
Rick, having successfully bested that first walker that seemed like it had a skull made of steel, turned and grimaced at the sight of the female walker and how it was still biting at thin air. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” he quipped.  
  
With a smirk, Charlie nodded in agreement and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Turning toward a door up ahead to the right of the altar, she sighed. “That might lead around to the other building. Maybe there’s a kitchen. Some churches have a mother’s room where mamas go to hush or feed their ornery babies, so we might find some couches or blankets for sleepin' tonight.” Giving Rick her attention, she gestured to his right shoulder. “But first—your shoulder.”  
  
“You think we should take these bodies outside?” Rick wondered, looking at their handiwork. “I mean, we just killed three walkers in a church.”  
  
Walking back down the center aisle to where she’d left his duffel bag, Charlie sent a frown his way from over her shoulder. “First of all, they were already dead. Secondly, I only took off that woman’s head and she’s still goin’ strong like the damn Energizer bunny. Thirdly, it’s just a building. What makes it a church is the people inside it and a faith in the Lord Almighty that they bring to the table and I’d say shit like this is as far away from godliness as possible.”  
  
As she crouched down, Rick sauntered up behind her and shrugged. “I dunno. This seems pretty much like the end times mentioned in Revelations and I’m sure God was supposed to have a hand in that. All those that got sick and died in the beginning, maybe that was the rapture and the rest of us got stuck with the aftermath of it all because our souls weren’t good enough to ascend to heaven.”  
  
Charlie continued to frown as she dug out the first aid kit and produced. Standing back up, she raised an eyebrow at him. “I doubt any of that was the rapture. I know plenty of assholes that got sick in the beginnin’, died and turned, who wouldn’t make it through the pearly gates without some sort of alarm system goin’ off.” Smacking his arm, she gestured for him to take a seat in the first pew in the back of the church they were nearer to. “Now sit your ass down and take your shirt off, Officer.”  
  
With a faint smile, Rick obliged; scooting over a bit to give her enough room to sit down beside him. As she set the first aid kit down between them, he began to undo the buttons of his uniform shirt. Balling it up in his hand, he placed down on the other side of him on the pew while she removed a small packet that looked similar to those wet naps they used to give out at restaurants after you’d eaten barbecue ribs. Charlie ripped the corner of the packet with her teeth and spit the corner out because ripping it open with her fingers wasn’t quite working. From inside the packet, she removed some sort of wipe and then leaned forward to roll up the sleeve of the white T-shirt had been wearing underneath his uniform shirt.  
  
“Hold the sleeve up for me,” she urged. “This is gonna sting.”  
  
Pressing the wipe against his shoulder, she began to remove the dried and coagulated blood from around his wound. The closer she got to the deep cut caused by the bullet that had grazed him, the more he felt that sting she’d warned him about. Rick winced, realizing that wipe was no wet nap, but instead more of an alcohol swab. He sucked it up after that and just sat silently as he watched her reach for a small bottle of liquid bandage next. With the little brush attached under the cap, she gently began to spread the clear, tacky goo over the cut rather generously and then blew on it a couple times to get it to dry faster.  
  
“You’re lucky we got this shit and not a needle and thread,” she muttered, returning the cap with its brush to the bottle and giving it a generous twist to close it up. “I’m shit with sewin’ and I’d probably butcher your poor shoulder.”  
  
“Well, I’d appreciate it either way. We can call ourselves even now,” he quipped as she started to peel off the backing of a large Band-Aid. “I got you away from those guys on the road and now you’re tending to my wounds.”  
  
Charlie frowned again, focusing on positioning the bandage just right. “I’d hardly call that even.”  
  
“You wouldn’t?”  
  
“The only reason you got shot at was ‘cause you helped me. You could’ve ridden on past and continued on your way to find your family. But you didn’t, and then you stayed to help fight a fight that wasn’t yours.”  
  
“It became my fight when they started shooting at me, too.” Tilting his head the side, he watched her hands as she shifted things around in the kit; making note that her hands were shaking again. “And if I’d ridden on past, I would’ve gone straight into Atlanta without knowing what you told me about it. I could've been attacked by a city full of the dead and died, still without knowing where Lori and Carl are.”  
  
“That their names?”  
  
“Yeah,” Rick nodded. Turning slightly, he rustled around with his uniform shirt, as if looking for something, and then turned back to face Charlie as he held out a picture in his hands.  
  
Dropping what she was doing for a moment, she took the picture from him and stared at it. It was a family photo of Rick with his wife and son; all three smiling for the camera. “This you and your family?”  
  
“Yeah. That’s Lori and Carl.”  
  
“Cute kid,” she remarked, handing the picture back. “How long ago was that taken?”  
  
“Last fall.” Rick chuckled. “Lori was friends with the mom of one of Carl’s friends. This friend considered herself a professional photographer extraordinaire and because of her friendship with Lori, offered to take the photos for free. This was the only decent shot of any of us she managed and even then all you really see of Carl is his head. You see nothing of his upper body. He’s all neck and head. But, what are you gonna do when it’s free?”  
  
“I used to see coupons all the time for Sears family portrait packages. How cheap  _were_  you?” Charlie teased as they both looked each other in the eye and chuckled.  
  
“Well, we  _were_  a one income household and sheriff’s deputies aren’t exactly rolling in the dough.” Rick had let his chuckle fade into a steady smile as he thought about his family. Drifting slowly back to reality, he focused on Charlie as she gestured to him. “What?”  
  
“Where’s that other bandage your friend Morgan changed? Where’s  _that_  wound?” she asked. “After all of today’s activity, you wouldn’t have popped a stitch or anything, would ya?”  
  
Rick shook his head. “Nah, I’m sure it’s fine.” To be sure, he lifted up his T-shirt enough for them both to glimpse the bandage in question. He went a step further and peeled it away to reveal the healing wound. “I must’ve had those dissolving stitches.”  
  
“Yeah, it looks fine,” she agreed as he began to re-stick the bandage in place. “Looks like it was bad, though.”  
  
“Bad enough for me to go get surgery and end up in a coma that lasted long enough for me to wake up in the middle of an apocalypse,” he jested. Watching as she packed everything back into the first aid kit, he focused on her hands again. They seemed fine this time, but when he brought his eyes up to her face, he saw the way she was biting her lip and how her brown eyes appeared distant and how her brow was knitted in concern. “What’s the matter?”  
  
“Nothin’,” she insisted, closing the first aid kit. “I’m fine.”  
  
“The biggest lie  _any_  woman has  _ever_  told.”  
  
With a roll of her eyes, Charlie looked away and stood up; stepping out of the pew while Rick just remained seated. “It’s no big deal, I promise.”  
  
“Is it about your mother? I mean, that all happened for you only this morning. I doubt it’s barely been twelve hours for you yet. I can’t imagine trying to deal with that and then those men…”  
  
“It ain’t about my mama.”  
  
Rick followed her movements with his eyes and watched how she paused; gripping the first aid kit with one hand and the back of the pew with the other. “Then what  _is_  it about? You’re not hurt, are you? Were you bit?” Shoving his family’s picture into his pants pocket, Rick leaned forward with concern of his own. Standing up, his eyes took in every inch of her to try and determine if she had a wound she was concealing from him.  
  
“No, I’m not hurt. I wasn’t bit,” she assured.  
  
“Then what?”  
  
Charlie sighed, removing her hand from the pew and pushing some hair from her eyes. “Those men…”  
  
“Yeah?” he urged. “What about ‘em?”  
  
“I’ve killed the dead before. My first was in Atlanta, fleein’ my apartment building and tryin’ to get to my car. All I had was a baseball bat with me that I kept inside my apartment in case someone tried breakin’ in,” she explained. “Unlike my mama, I didn’t keep guns in my place. I  _did_  have one in the trunk of my car that I had a permit for, but it was just a handgun like the one you gave me earlier. I killed more walkers at the camps when they started getting’ in, and then more when I fled the city, several here and there on the road to my mama’s and several more since then when I’d gone scavengin’ any nearby homes. You always find a couple stragglers here and there no matter what. Obviously, the walkers in here, too.” She gestured toward where those three walkers were closer to the front of the church and then looked down toward the ground. “But before today I’d never killed a livin’, breathin’ person. I mean there were always horrible people in the old world; people who deserved death but walked around freely. You know—child molesters, rapists, men who beat their wives and children, and murderers. You wish those people dead. You wish the worst kinds of pain and deaths on them, but you never really take it into your own hands. You would just let the law do what it was there for. But society fell and the law means shit now. Hospitals, police stations, the National Guard—things put in place to save and protect the people just don’t exist anymore and now it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. And today I took matters into my own hands and I finally killed people who deserved it.”  
  
“Well, they did.”  
  
She shrugged. “I didn’t feel bad about it, though. I think I almost enjoyed it, and that’s what frightened me.” Charlie looked up at Rick with a deep-set frown. “I’m scared of what this world might do to me and how it’ll change me so I can survive. I don’t wanna lose who I am. I don’t wanna lose my humanity and become like those men.”  
  
Rick furrowed his brow and stepped out of the pew and into the aisle. Placing a hand upon Charlie’s shoulder, he shook his head. “You won’t change for the worst. You’ve taken that first step in making sure it won’t happen by saying you  _don’t_  want to be like that. I mean, you do what you gotta do to keep yourself alive and if it means killing bad people, then that’s what you gotta do, I guess.” Rick tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Good people don’t stop and help strangers on the side of the road. Good people don’t bandage strangers up and look after them to keep them safe. So, I think you and I will do alright in this world.”  
  
Charlie nodded her head appreciatively and attempted a smile. “Yeah, I s’pose so.”  
  
“I  _know_  so.”  
  
Looking him square in the eye, her smile—albeit small—became more pronounced. “Well, I just want you to know that whatever we do next, wherever you wanna go to find your wife and kid, I’ll go with you. I’ll help you and be right there at your side to make sure you keep goin’,” she insisted. “My mama was all I cared about in this world and now she’s gone. I have no one else except you, so now you’re stuck with me.”  
  
Rick chuckled and shrugged. “I’ve had worse partners.”

 


	3. Stopping by Woods...

__

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
_But I have promises to keep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep._  
— Robert Frost, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'

* * *

  
When sleep began to escape from Rick’s grasp, he became acutely more aware of his surroundings and was confused as to why he was so uncomfortable and why he was not waking up in his bed at home. Letting out a small grunt of discomfort, he opened his eyes fully and found he was staring at the back of something wood. Knitting his brow, he lifted his head and looked at the immediate area he was in and quickly it all came back to him that he was in a church and he’d been sleeping upon a cushioned pew. Pushing himself upright into a sitting position, he looked down at his left and saw his uniform shirt which he remembered balling up and using as some sort of pillow for his head. Then he just sat in silence and let all the pieces of the former day fall back into place.  
  
He remembered that Charlie had agreed to the removal of the three walkers they’d killed the day before; just setting them beside the church. Then Charlie had forgotten about the head to the female walker and had to lift it by its hair and carry it outside like a baby’s soiled diaper and then just tossing unceremoniously atop the bodies; still chomping at the air because Charlie hadn’t stabbed it in the head either. Rick did, though, with a grimace. Since the walkers had been seated toward the front of the church, marinating in the stench of their decay for weeks and weeks on end, and since that was where they’d slain, Rick and Charlie had opted for sleeping toward the back. They had opened the windows to let some fresh air in, but shut the doors to protect themselves from anything or anyone wandering inside.  
  
They knew they were taking a risk, leaving the horse out front, for two specific reasons. Firstly, because the horse was a beacon of life and the dead could happen upon it, while Rick and Charlie slept, and feast. Secondly, it could alert anyone acquainted with the men that had been following them and that they had killed. It would be a giveaway that they were inside the church, but it was a risk they had to take. They had gone outside and circled the church and its attached building and there wasn’t a better or easier place to tie the horse up. They would just have to take their chances.  
  
After checking the perimeter, they had force their way into both the upper and lower levels of the attached building. The downstairs had only one entrance and it was located at the front, all the way to the left of the building. Inside was a large kitchen to the left and to the right was simply open space with old pews against the walls. They checked the cabinets and the fridge; discovering a good deal of non-perishable food, bottles of water, cans of generic soda and a one gallon jug of fruit punch. Sitting on the counters, Rick and Charlie ate cans of tuna and drank Dr. Perky, which they both recognized as a knock-off of Dr. Pepper from Food Lion grocery stores.  
  
Even though they could’ve just left their trash on the counters when they were finished, neither felt right about doing it, so they tossed the empty cans into a plastic garbage bin they found inside the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Inside a cupboard filled with cleaning supplies and a few cobwebs, they found plastic bags and a single cloth tote bag fill up with the food and beverages they’d found. Lugging the bags outside with two mixing bowls they’d found from one of the cupboards, they set them down on the front steps to the church. In one bowl they emptied out a bottle of water and in the other bowl they emptied out a box of store brand corn flakes. Now the horse would finally be able to eat and drink something. It had earned it, carrying Rick and now also Charlie, and never putting up a fuss.  
  
To the side of the front steps was another set of stairs, set back a ways. Curious, they climbed those stairs to find themselves standing amidst a narrow breezeway that connected the church to the upstairs section of the attached building. In front of them was a set of patio chairs, a patio couch and matching table between. Beyond the breezeway was a view of the church’s cemetery. To their right was a door that led into the sanctuary and to the left was the door that led into the attached building’s upstairs. Opening that door slowly in case anything jumped out at them, Rick went first; his Colt drawn. Nothing did jump out at them, though. No one living or dead was anywhere upstairs. The only walkers they’d had to deal with were those three inside the church.  
  
They scoured the rooms, which consisted of a small bathroom with only two stalls, a church office, a pastor’s office, and three small Sunday school classrooms; one of which had an upright piano against the wall and a cabinet full of choir robes. There was no other food upstairs, except for a few candy bars stashed in a desk drawer of the pastor’s office, but there were two things of use that Charlie had made sure to grab.  
  
“What’ve you got?” Rick had asked as they made their way out of the attached building.  
  
“Toilet paper and soap,” she replied. “You’d be surprised how often I’ve found unused toilet rolls of toilet paper in the homes I’ve scavenged over the last two months. Food, water and medicine are always the first things to be taken. But food you can grow and water you can collect. Medicine, okay, that’s a necessity, but it ain’t somethin’ that’s needed all the time unless you got ongoin’ medical issues. But, toilet paper? You need that shit.  _Daily_. No pun intended.”  
  
That night, they had settled in in the church, since the pews were cushioned. They’d checked on the horse a few times to see that it was okay. Rick had even taken it for a walk around the buildings twice for some extra exercise before turning in for the night, but also as an excuse for to check the perimeter and make sure they were safe. Tying the reins around the railing again, Rick had brushed his hand along the horse’s mane and bid it goodnight.  
  
Inside the church, Rick and Charlie had talk about inconsequential stuff; just making small talk until they were too tired to keep their eyes open. Then, with polite wishes of a good night, they both sank down into their respective pews and went to sleep.  
  
And that brought Rick back to the present, sitting there in said pew, looking around and not seeing anything out of the ordinary other than the fact that he was waking up in a strange church and his family was lost from him somewhere out there in a world infested by the dead walking around.  
  
It was like a very bad horror movie. Or a good one.  
  
He supposed it depended on the perspective, but he was going with bad.  
  
The more he paid focused on the quiet of the church, the more he realized how quiet it really wasn’t. A couple of pews up and across the aisle was where Charlie sleeping. Or, at least, was supposed to be sleeping. Just sitting there, he could hear that she was stirring awake judging by the subtle sounds of her body moving around on her pew. He remained silent, waiting for her to sit up before he wished her a good morning or asked how she slept. But then he was pretty sure he heard the familiar sound of muted crying. He knew it well from those occasions when Lori was upset about something and was trying to hide it from him or trying not to wake him up. He remembered it mostly after Lori’s grandmother had died a few years back. She had been terribly close to her grandmother and took it terribly hard when she was gone. After the initial loss, she passed into a period where she seemed to have gotten passed it but every so often, over the course of the following months, something triggered her grief and she would break down into a bout of fresh tears. But, eventually, as with all things, time eventually healed that pain and those tears stopped falling.  
  
Rick had known what Charlie had suffered the day before, with how horribly she’d lost her mother and had been forced to witness it, but with how she’d been handling herself the day before since they’d met, and how whatever happened and whatever was bothering her, it was easy for him to forget about it and think only on what was missing from his life and how he was trying to deal with this new world. He kept forgetting he wasn’t the only one struggling to go forward and be strong. He kept forgetting that that he didn’t have a monopoly on grief, especially since her family was gone and dead while his was possibly still alive.  
  
“Charlie…”   
  
And like that the sniffling stopped.  
  
Either she realized he’d heard her or she was trying to pretend all was fine and that she hadn’t been crying at all.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You awake.”  
  
“Well, I just answered you, so…”  
  
Rick smirked. “We should head out soon,” he suggested. “Hopefully we can find a working car at some point today. Kinda don’t want to let the horse go off on its own, though.”  
  
Charlie sat up, looking forward toward the front of the church and not over at Rick. “The horse would probably stand a better chance without us.”  
  
“You’re probably right,” Rick shrugged. “When I found it yesterday, its owners were dead in their house and it looks like they’d been dead a while. The horse was fine. It had grass to feed on, there was a trough full of rainwater to drink from, and it was fenced in so nothing was getting at it anytime soon.”  
  
“The world keeps turnin’ with or without mankind,” Charlie remarked. “Be mankind dead or alive.”  
  
“Yeap.”  
  
As she stood up, she finally looked over at him and then gestured toward the door that led to that breezeway between the church and its attached building. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom, freshen up a bit. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”  
  
Rick nodded. “Okay.”  
  
Watching her walk sideways through the rest of her pew as she slipped out into the center aisle, his gaze shifted to the bags they’d filled with supplies the evening before. Charlie shuffled through a couple of them; withdrawing a bottle of water, a roll of toilet paper and tiny, wrapped bar of hand soap. Gathering up those three things in her hands, Charlie made her way around to that connecting door and slipped out into the breezeway without a word as Rick’s gaze continued to follow after her.  
  
He sat there where he was for a few moments longer before getting up and making his way to the very front. He stood there at the base of the altar area, with his hands clasped together while looking up at the large crucifix on the wall. He chewed on the inside of his bottom lip; mulling over his thoughts and picking at his fingernails.  
  
“I’m not much of a believer. Never really have been,” he spoke up to the crucifix, or perhaps just to himself. “I guess I just chose to put my faith elsewhere. My family, mostly. My friends. My job. The thing is—now I don’t have anything of that to lean on. Well, I have Charlie with me and I guess I can consider her a friend now and vice versa, but we—I need something more to go on. I need something to help me get through this world and help me find my family, or at least find out what happened to them.” Rick hung his head down, scuffing the toe of his boot upon the church’s marron carpet. “If they’re gone, if my wife and son are dead, I don’t know how to go on with my life. What’s the point without them? Maybe…maybe this is all a lost cause. Maybe humankind is a lost cause and we should all just give up.” He looked back up again, gazing upon the detail of the painted on drops of blood around Jesus’s face and upper chest. “Some acknowledgment would be nice. Some indication that I’m on the right path; that I’m headed the right way. You don’t know how hard that is to know. Well, maybe you do.” Rick sighed at the heavy silence in the church. “Hey look, I don't need all the answers. Just a little nudge. A sign. Any sign will do.”  
  
As if on cue, the horse outside neighed.  
  
But it wasn’t a typical neigh.  
  
The horse sounded frightened and possibly in terrible pain.  
  
With the hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end, Rick turned and ran down the center aisle; stopping briefly to pick his utility belt up off the floor of the pew he’d been sleeping on. Grabbing his Colt out of the holster, he let the rest of the belt slip back to the floor and went straight to the church’s red double doors and yanked one of them open.  
  
There, at the base of the stone steps, the horse had collapsed under the accumulation of injuries sustained by half a dozen walkers that had it surrounded and the weight of said walkers pressed against the animal’s body. Decayed fingers of the dead were clawing at and digging into the horse’s flesh, ripping it open and pulling out its innards to feast upon.  
  
With his shoulders slumping with a sense of defeat, Rick groaned under his breath. “This wasn’t exactly the sign I was hoping for,” he mumbled.  
  
Standing there, Rick had exposed his presence to the walkers and shouldn’t have been surprised when half of the walkers turned toward him and tried making their way up the stone steps toward him, but he was. Tensing slightly, Rick reacted appropriately by raising his Colt and firing a shot into the heads of each walker. He’d missed with the last one, and his gun clicked; letting him know he’d run out of bullets. So, Rick stepped back into the church and closed the door and rushed to grab a box of ammo from his duffel bag. Loading his gun accordingly with the six rounds it only allowed, Rick returned back to the door and pulled it opened and was startled again when he saw that last walker was suddenly inches from his face. Stumbling back a bit, Rick aimed his gun point blank and pulled the trigger. Such close proximity caused the walker’s head to jerk back roughly from the gunshot before its entire body dropped and tumbled backward down the steps.  
  
Sighing heavily, Rick took a moment to gather his wits; stepping back further into the church and leaning the small of his back against the very last pew behind him.  
  
A few seconds later, Charlie burst through the breezeway door, looking flustered and holding a handgun he hadn’t realized she’d taken with her to the bathroom.  
  
“What was all that gunfire?” she questioned; her dark eyes wide with alarm. “Did those men—?”  
  
Rick was quick to shake his head. “No. Walkers.” He frowned; a little disappointed in himself. He should’ve gone to check on the horse first rather than appealing to some statue of a deity. “They got the horse.”  
  
Charlie didn’t seem too upset, but she wasn’t exactly pleased by this turn of events either. “Well, fuck,” she muttered; her shoulders slumping the same as Rick’s did. “Did you get all of ‘em?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What about the horse?”  
  
“What about it? We can’t exactly ride him anymore.”  
  
“No, you idiot.” She shot him a withering look. “Did you put the horse out of its misery?”  
  
“No. I just got done killing those walkers.”  
  
“Well, it’s cruel to just let the horse languish like that. He got us this far. He deserves not to suffer so long.”  
  
Without saying anything else, Charlie stepped to the front doors and out into the morning sunlight. Rick followed behind and both were careful to sidestep the dead walkers on and around the steps. Sinking down onto one of those steps just above where the horse was lying upon its side and wheezing heavily with labored breaths while bleeding out, Charlie brought a hand to its mane and started to stroke it soothingly. Rick watched as she shushed it and muttered to it in a low, calm voice and assured the horse that it was alright. And then Rick watched as Charlie pressed the barrel of her handgun to the back of the horse’s head and pulled the trigger twice. Two shots to make sure it died quick.  
  
The horse stilled then.  
  
Its head slumped against one of the bottom steps, the midsection stopped moving with the ceasing of breath, but the blood still seeped from the open wound and several innards still seemed to be tumbling out onto the ground below.  
  
Looking back at Rick with a frown, Charlie rested her handgun upon her thigh. “Looks like we’re walking now.”

 

* * *

  
Rick and Charlie, burdened down with bags of supplies, were now on foot as they made their way along the same road from the day before; only, this time, in the opposite direction as not to potentially cross paths with the rest of those men who they weren’t sure were still looking for them or not. Rick’s wristwatch told them that it was barely nine in the morning, but the sun in the sky that wasn’t yet overhead was another determining factor of that. The day was young and they had a whole lot of it ahead of them to figure out where they would go.  
  
“…And your certain your wife and kid wouldn’t have gone to any family nearby?”  
  
Rick, with his duffel bag full of guns and ammo strapped to his back, adjusted his grip on the straps of either bag he was carrying in both of his hands; having offered to carry the tote full of canned goods and the plastic bag full of bottled water. He glanced slightly over his shoulder back at Charlie who was walking a few steps behind him, carrying the plastic bag of toiletries and few soda cans in one hand and another plastic bag carrying the remainder of non-perishable food items in the other hand. The jug of fruit punch they had decided wasn't a necessity. It was just too bulky and awkward to carry, not to mention all that sugar content wouldn’t help with potential dehydration. Sure, the soda wasn’t exactly better, either, but at least it was compact and easier to transport.  
  
“No, like I said yesterday, Lori’s an only child and her folks moved to Mesa a few years ago. She was never close to aunts, uncles or cousins. Neither was my family,” Rick replied, looking back forward. “Even if I was, mine’s a bit north in Cynthiana, Kentucky. But Lori never knew them. I mean, she would’ve met a small handful at our wedding, but that was thirteen years ago.”  
  
“What about friends?”  
  
“Pretty much only friend I had these days was Shane. It was a good thing he was also my partner, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the time to maintain that friendship. Work, family…it all gets in the way of anything else.”  
  
“Did Shane have a family of his own?”  
  
“No. He was single. Both his parents died a couple years ago like mine, but they were much older. He’d kind of been an ‘oops’ baby. So, his parents getting sick and dying like they did wasn’t too much of a shock.”  
  
“Yours was?”  
  
“Well, not my dad so much. He was a smoker all his life. Add that to just overworking himself and congestive heart failure isn’t too much of a shock, but I still wasn’t prepared for it. My mom died years that, though. Cancer. She never got to see Carl born. To see or hold her only grandchild,” Rick continued. Rattling off his personal history with Charlie felt oddly comforting, especially since he wasn’t one for really opening up and talking about feelings or whatever was bothering him. Perhaps it was just a nice distraction from the frustration of not knowing where Lori and Carl was, the fact that they were without direction or that they weren’t sure if or when they’d find proper transportation and shelter for the night. “Losing my mom back then was rough. I think that was the final straw that sent my brother packing.”  
  
“Why’s that?”  
  
“I think he’d always had a thing for Lori. The two of them had been friends in high school and he was the one that had introduced me to Lori in the first place. I figure he always regretted that decision, especially once Lori and I made it official by getting married. He didn’t come ‘round to visit us much, and then our mom got sick, and then she died. He was still living at home and my dad could sometimes be a brute. I was never some all-American jock type who was a daddy’s boy, but I certainly got along with my father much better than Jeff did. Jeff was a more…sensitive soul. He butted heads with my father and without my mother there as a buffer anymore, Jeff packed up and just took off with barely a word goodbye to any of us. He went traveling, working odd jobs. He’d come home for the holidays. He kept in touch, but I haven’t really seen much of him since Carl was born. I don’t think choosing Shane as Carl’s godfather over Jeff helped any.”  
  
Charlie listened intently. It was nice having him talk about something that could take her mind off losing her mother. She let her mind wander; picturing all these things about his life he was describing. It gave her better insight into this man she had only just met and had agreed to travel the great unknown of this new world with; who she had basically pledged her foreseeable future to.   
  
“So, Shane has no family,” she remarked, steering them back on topic. “If he had no family of his own to seek out and Lori didn’t either, maybe they sought each other out and got out together.”  
  
“Maybe,” Rick nodded. “I’d certainly trust their lives to him. Shane would definitely keep them safe to the best of his ability if that’s what happened.”  
  
“Where would Shane have taken them?”  
  
Rick shrugged. Or, at least, as best he could with all the bags he was carrying. “Probably to Atlanta like everyone else, but Shane’s always had good insight into things. That’s what made him a good cop. If he saw shit was going from bad to worse, he would’ve kept Lori and Carl from something like that or gotten them away as soon as he could. At least, I hope so.”  
  
“ _Okay_ …so where would they have  _gone_? Any other friends  _he_  was friends with but  _you_  weren’t? Or maybe to hospitals, police stations, schools, or a church like we found?”  
  
“King County is a ghost town. I don’t know of any other place they might’ve sought out.”  
  
“Well, it doesn’t have to be someplace they knew. Just someplace they felt could’ve been safe. Somethin’ with sturdy walls to keep the dead out. Somethin’ with food and water,” Charlie suggested, coming up more alongside Rick. “We can check those kinds of places.”  
  
“I guess.”  
  
“Even if they’re not in those places, maybe we’ll find other survivors who might’ve seen ‘em.”  
  
Rick felt a little antsy talking about these possibilities. They were good suggestions and he was getting frustrated with himself that he wasn’t the one thinking of them. So, he fell quiet.  
  
Charlie seemed to pick up his sullenness. Or maybe she picked up on his uncertainty. “We can check homes outside Atlanta. There’s plenty of gated communities. Or maybe refugee camps outside the city for those who didn’t make it there or got out in time like I did. I mean, there were plenty of people stuck on the road in both directions. Lori, Shane, Carl…they coulda been any number of those people I passed. Maybe those people set up camp somewhere near the main roads.”  
  
Despite not speaking, Rick somehow managed to become quieter.  
  
“They might be with other people, too. Safety in numbers and all that—”  
  
“ _Okay_ ,” Rick bit out somewhat curtly. He stopped in his tracks and turned to looked sternly at Charlie. “I get it. There’s a billion different places or situations my wife and son can be in.  _Or_  they could be  _dead_. And I have no idea where to start with any of it. I have no idea where to look first or which road to take.”  
  
Charlie pursed her lips together and frowned back at him. “I’m just offerin’ up suggestions. I’m tryin’ to help. I get you’re at a loss over what to do and where to go next, but that’s why I’m with you. To  _help_. You ain’t gotta be a  _dick_  about it.”  
  
Rick sighed.  
  
A moment later, Charlie scoffed and continued walking ahead with a roll of her eyes, without waiting on him.  
  
After a second sigh, Rick hung his head and followed after her.

 

* * *

  
After barely an hour of walking, they stopped for a break to have a little something to eat and drink since they hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the evening before. They sat on the side of the road in silence, passing a bag of Fritos back and forth. Not wanting to finish off the entire bag, Charlie rolled it up as best she could and stuffed it back into the plastic bag she’d been carrying. Rick and Charlie got back up after that and continued on their way, finding nothing but a few ranch-style homes along the way, set back off the road, that seemed unlikely that his family, or anyone for that matter, would be seeking sanctuary in. They also began coming upon more vehicles on the road, all abandoned and full of potential. None seemed to have keys, which was okay because both Rick and Charlie knew how to hotwire cars. However, the cars that were viable either had corpses baking inside for weeks on end from the heat, or were without gas because they’d run out or survivors had siphoned the remainder for other cars.  
  
Continuing on, and nearing the noon hour, Rick and Charlie walked in step together down the middle of the road when they heard a rumbling sound of a vehicle coming from half a mile down the road from the direction they’d been coming from.  
  
“In the woods,” Charlie barked, already stepping carefully down the slope from the road toward the tree coverage.  
  
Not hesitating at all, Rick followed behind her and the both of them darted into the woods where they hunkered down amongst some shrubbery so they could still manage to get a glimpse of the vehicle that was approaching while remaining hidden for their safety. Crouched down in silence and fraught with unease, they waited for less than a minute when a truck came ambling toward them. From the distance away it was still at, they could tell there was obviously someone at the wheel, but also there was someone standing up in the back bed that was leaning forward onto the roof. Up ahead were more cars and trucks that Rick and Charlie had been about to approach and check for themselves to see if there was any potential to them, and those cars and trucks are what caused the approaching truck to slow its speed to it could maneuver around safely.  
  
As the truck drove past where Rick and Charlie were hidden within the trees on the side of the road, they were able to just barely catch a glimpse that there were two men in the front cab of the truck and three in the back bed, including the man standing up. The man standing up seemed to be holding onto some off road roof lights with one hand and a shotgun with the other hand. The other two in the back bed were sitting and holding shotguns of their own, aimed upwards. Rick and Charlie suddenly felt confident in their decision to get off the road as quickly as they had. Even if the men in that truck weren’t affiliated with the men from the day before, they didn’t seem all that friendly.  
  
Rick and Charlie waited until the truck had disappeared up the road and around the bend before they dared to step out from between the trees.  
  
And when they did, they didn’t last long out in the open.  
  
Coming out of the woods from the other side of the road was the beginnings of at least a dozen or more walkers that had been drawn by the noise of the truck thundering along. Only a couple seemed to have spotted the pair stepping out from the safety of the trees and that’s all it took for Rick and Charlie to turn back around and slip back into the woods.  
  
“Go, go,” Rick urged.  
  
Carrying the supplies they had on them, and with the amount of walkers coming out of the woods across the way, neither of them were in a position to take part in any sort of Mexican standoff with the dead.  
  
They ran, darting around trees and just heading straight, deeper into the woods. Neither came to a stop until they were at least a football field’s length away from the road. Only then did they stop and look back and determine if the dead had followed. They also took the time to properly catch their breath as their hearts were beating wildly in their chests from the adrenaline rush.   
  
Charlie looked to Rick and Rick looked to Charlie.  
  
“Maybe it’s best we just stay off the roads for a little while?” she suggested.  
  
Rick nodded; okay with that idea. “These woods have gotta come out somewhere. When we get wherever that is, we’ll get back onto a road; maybe find a better path to be on.”  
  
Charlie nodded as well.  
  
And then a walker came stepping out from around a tree with its arms outstretched toward Charlie, who jumped and stumbled backward.   
  
“Shit,” she blurted.   
  
Dropping her bags, she fumbled the handgun she had tucked back into the back of her pants like she had the day before. Rick, fortunately, was quicker to react and reach for his Colt. He contributed to so many years on the job. Just like a gunslinger from the old west, he dropped his own bags with ease, pulled his Colt out and shot straight for the walker’s head and one shot was all it took. The walker dropped backward like a sack of coal and Rick wasted no time in offering Charlie his hand to help her up. Having lost her footing when the walker came out of nowhere at her, and while trying to reach for her gun, she had slipped and fallen upon one of the bags she’d dropped.  
  
Once she was upright and brushing some soil and twigs from her ass, she nodded at Rick. “Thanks.”  
  
“Welcome.”  
  
Charlie rubbed her left hip from where she’d landed on one of those bags and then crouched down to inspect that bag. “Shit.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My fat ass crushed all the Dr. Perky.”  
  
Rick smiled and snickered. “At least that’s our only loss.”  
  
“Yeah, I know. But soda’s gotta be, like, a rare delicacy these days, and my ass just crushed three cans of it like sack of bricks.” Charlie sighed. “Well, fuck.”  
  
Still smirking, Rick slowly grew more serious as he watched her dump out the cans of soda and removed the unopened four-pack of toilet paper, and checking it over. As she transferred the toilet paper to her other bag, after giving it a shake to free it of Dr. Perky residue, Rick cleared his throat which caused her to look up at him.  
  
“I’m sorry about earlier. About snapping at you,” he apologized.  
  
Charlie shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”  
  
“It wasn’t really directed at you. It was just…” Rick breathed heavily out of his nostrils. “I’m trying to process this world still, and it’s not easy. And I’m worried about where my family is, and I’m scared that they’re dead and that I wasn’t there to protect them.”  
  
Charlie took this in and accepted the excuse with just a nod. “I figured as much. And I get it, I do. But don’t forget for a minute that you’re the lucky one here,” she warned. “You didn’t have to live through the change this world went through and witness it fall apart like I did. You haven’t lost your  _family_  like I did. You, at least, have a chance of still findin’ ‘em alive and well.” Charlie shrugged and plastered a forced smile upon her face. “I don’t.”  
  
“I know. I’m sorry for that, too.” Rick sighed. “I know I have no right to complain when you’ve been through more.”  
  
“We’ve both been through shit. No doubt we still got more ahead of us.”  
  
Rick nodded and looked toward the direction they’d been heading toward. “And we should probably keep going ahead. Killing this walker might’ve drawn those from the road.”  
  
Charlie agreed. “Yeah, let’s keep moving.”

 

* * *

  
Still traveling throughout the woods, the only thing they had to contend with was a few mosquitoes and two more walkers; but at least with the latter they had seen them coming and enough time to prepare to kill them. They started making small talk again, literally about anything and everything; even about the weather and how rain didn’t seem likely to happen any day soon. They were probably headed into a drought and they would have to drink their water sparingly, just in case.  
  
Soon they came upon a small tent with a yellow tarp draped over it and camping supplies surrounding the outside of it, including a lantern.  
  
Rick pointed it out and looked at Charlie with a bit of hope. “Might be some good supplies in there.”  
  
“What if someone’s staying in this tent and they went off hunting or scavenging? We just gonna take another survivor’s things?”  
  
He hadn’t even considered that the owner of the tent might be alive. “No, I guess not.”  
  
After a moment, Charlie shrugged. “Well, I s’pose it don’t hurt to look.”  
  
The two of them looked at each other and smirked.  
  
As they neared the tent, they could see that it was unzipped half way. Setting down their bags, Rick removed his Colt once more from its holster and Charlie removed her gun from the back of her pants; silently wishing she had a holster like Rick. Sidling up next to the flap, they were almost immediately hit with the overwhelming of decay. Their gag reflexes kicked in and both very nearly threw up the Fritos from that morning and the tuna from the evening before.  
  
Grimacing at what they both figured was inside, but still needing to see for themselves, Rick and Charlie nodded at each other as Rick pushed the flap aside. Their gag reflexes worked double time and it was nearly impossible for either of them to keep a lid on the contents of their stomach. Pinching their nostrils shut, they peered inside and saw there was a decomposing man seated in a chair with his back to them. In his right hand, and dangling down at the ground, was a gun the man was still gripping onto. Reaching out, Rick grabbed the gun, which was a small Detective Special Colt revolver and he passed it over to Charlie. Taking the gun and turning away from the tent, she dropped it gently into Rick’s duffel bag. When she looked back, she saw Rick had stepped further into the tent and was hurrying out after only seconds. He gripped his thighs and hunched forward; making a retching noise, as if he really were going to throw up. When he didn’t, he stood up straight and looked over at Charlie with his brow furrowed and a frown upon his face.  
  
“I don’t think he’ll mind if we took anything,” Rick finally managed to speak.  
  
Charlie agreed with a nod. “He took the easy way out. I doubt the distribution of his personal possessions were a high priority by that point.” Her whole body shivered as a faint breeze carried the scent from within the tent out and assaulted her nostrils again. “God _damn_ , he’s ripe.”  
  
Rick wasn’t about to mention the maggots crawling in and out of the man’s face and make the situation worse. It was bad enough he’d seen it. He wasn’t about to make her picture it and send everything she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours spilling out of her mouth.  
  
“Too bad that tent reeks to high heaven,” she continued. “It’d be nice to have if we can’t find decent shelter by nightfall.”  
  
Rick nodded and reached for the flashlight sitting atop a cooler. He flicked it on and off, but nothing happened; denoting a dead battery. He then tried the lantern, which did come on. Turning it back off to conserve however much battery power was left, he passed it along to Charlie who had a free hand. The only other thing that seemed worth taking was an axe with a long wooden handle. Taking the axe, he put it into his duffel bag, which he hoisted back up and threw around his shoulder. He then grabbed up the other bags of their supplies he’d been carrying and gestured for Charlie to resume the same; only now she also had the lantern. Before they continued on their way, Charlie looked around at where they were and gestured to their right.   
  
“I think if we go that way, we’d be heading back in the direction of the church. Behind us is where we came from, so I think the best choices we got is to go left or go straight.”  
  
Rick looked around as well. “Honestly, I’m getting a bit turned about, but I think it’d be best to just go straight.”  
  
“Okay. Straight it is.” Then, she asked, “You got all that?”  
  
Looking down at the bags in either of his hands, he flexed his back muscles in an attempt to reposition how the guns within the duffel bag laid. “Yeah, I got it.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Rick nodded and, with a smile, repeated, “Okay.”

 

* * *

  
Though they were hidden from direct sunlight under a canopy of trees, they didn’t have to rely solely upon Rick’s wristwatch to know what time it was. They could see enough of the sun to tell where in the sky it was and could tell by its waning arc that it was either late afternoon or early evening. Both looked at each other in silence and neither would give in to their respective frustrations over how lost they felt in these woods or how sore and tired they were from aimlessly carrying around their supplies.  
  
“You’d think we were in South America, in the Amazon,” Charlie muttered after a while; mostly to herself. “It’s like we’ve been walking for days. These woods feel like they’re goin’ on forever.”  
  
Rick was unresponsive at first; too lost in thought. After what she’d said had pierced the veil that was his thought process, he turned and nodded at her. “Maybe we’re just goin’ around in circles. I’ve seen no discernable markings anywhere. All these trees look the same. We could be passing by new trees or passing the same ones. I really don’t know.”  
  
“Well, let’s hope we find the end of this labyrinth soon. I doubt it’d be safe spending the night in the woods.”  
  
“I dunno,” Rick shrugged. “I’m starting to feel like that’s the path we’re headed on.”  
  
Charlie stopped walking, and then so did Rick.  
  
“If that’s the case, we better keep a lookout for some crazy ass trees that we can climb up into, with big ol’ branches, wide enough to hold our weight through the night so we can sleep far enough off the ground,” she suggested. “We don’t want to wake up to walkers gnawin’ at our ankles.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rick agreed. As if expecting a walker to jump out from behind them, he looked over his shoulder to make sure nothing undead was nearby. “But hopefully we find an exit from these woods first.”  
  
“Well, yeah, obviously.”  
  
With a nod to each other, both continued forward, or, at least, what they believed to be forward. Every so often, Rick would look up and notice the sun was getting lower toward the horizon and the light within the woods was starting to gradually dim. His brow furrowed in continued frustration and he tried his best to remain positive. As not to let himself become swallowed up by pessimism, he tried focusing his mind on other things, like what he’d say to Lori and Carl if he ever saw them again. Or thanking Morgan again for helping out after he’d woken up into this world just two days ago.  
  
_Shit_.  
  
“Shit,” Rick repeated allowed and instead of just in his mind as he stopped in his tracks, with Charlie doing the same as she looked expectantly at him.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“ _What_?” Charlie pressed.  
  
“Morgan.”  
  
Charlie was confused for a moment, trying to figure out who that was, but quickly remembered Morgan was the man who had first explained the new world to Rick. “What about him?”  
  
“I need to call him.”  
  
Charlie raised an eyebrow at Rick. “And how did you plan on doin’ that exactly, what with all the cell towers bein’ down?”  
  
Rick cast a glance at her. “I gave him one of two walkies and he said he’d meet me in Atlanta in a few days. He’s gonna radio me when he gets close so we can meet up,” Rick clarified. “If what you said was true about the city, then Morgan and his son will be walking right into a death trap.”  
  
“If what I said  _wasn’t_  true, you wouldn’t be walkin’ through these woods with me right now. Or, at the very least, if you didn’t believe me, you would’ve gone straight into the city and then found out for yourself what it’s like there.” Charlie narrowed her gaze upon him, as if daring him to call her a liar. “If you were lucky, you might’ve found someplace to hide when droves of walkers came at you from every direction. Maybe you would’ve been rescued by some good Samaritan stuck in the city, same as you.  _Or_  maybe you would’ve been pinned down, ripped apart limb by limb and devoured.”  
  
“The point is I need to radio him.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know how amazin’ this walkie-talkie you have on you is, but you’re not gonna be able to make contact with him in these woods,” she remarked sensibly. “Even if your friend is headed to Atlanta this very second, I feel like anyone would have the common sense to not first head into the city so close to nightfall; especially considerin’ that you haven’t made contact with him just yet to give him a proper heads up. If he’s on his way there, he and his son are takin’ shelter somewhere tonight. First thing tomorrow, at first light, get on your walkie-talkie and warn him away. Make your way up onto a roof or something somewhere that’s high enough so your walkie-talkie stands a better chance of reachin’ him, wherever he is right now. If need be, tell him about the church we were at. Tell him to go there and we’ll make our way back to meet up with him and his son.”  
  
Rick didn’t verbalize it, but he was thankful; not just for Charlie being there to help further guide him through this new world, but to also help him think a bit straighter. She was like the angel on his shoulder, making sure he didn’t fuck up and do something stupid or potentially fatal.  
  
“Yeah, you’re right.”  
  
“I know I am.” Charlie smirked when he looked her in the eye.  
  
His own smirk appearing upon his lips, Rick just nodded. “You’re incredibly humble, too,” he teased; his head tilting slightly.  
  
With a small chuckle, Charlie nodded ahead of them. “Okay, so can we keep goin’ already? I mean, I really don’t want to have to sleep in some tree tonight if we can avoid it.”  
  
“Yeah,” Rick nodded again. “Yeah, let’s get out of these damn woods already.”

 

* * *

  
Get out of the woods before nightfall they did not.  
  
The sun was very near setting and it was getting much more difficult to see through the trees ahead of them when they found a tree about fifty feet to their left, amidst some brush, that had about three notably thick branches that seemed far enough off the ground. It would just be a matter of climbing said tree to attain that safe place for sleeping for the night.  
  
With a look to each other, they wordlessly agreed that was their best bet at present and made their way over. A few other branches that stuck out but wouldn’t be sturdy enough for their bodies looked to be at least sturdy enough to hook the bags with their supplies upon, which they did. Since it was easier for him to help her up onto the first branch instead of the other way around, Rick bent at the knees and cupped his hands together; allowing Charlie to place a foot into his hands and reach up for the first thick branch as he hoisted her up. Laying upon her stomach across the branch at first, she threw her hands out at her sides to grab onto whatever she could to pull herself up. Rick stepped back to let her get situated without any more of his help and turned his attention on getting up into the tree next by himself.  
  
Putting his sights upon the branch that was perpendicular to Charlie’s, but also a few inches higher up, Rick knitted his brow together and frowned. Reaching up, he gripped his branch with his left hand and gripped the bark of the tree trunk with his right hand. Hooking the heel of his boot into a slight divot in the trunk, Rick began his task. Thankful that, as a man, he was blessed with upper body strength, Rick was successful in pulling himself up. Twisting at the waist, however, his body turned and he draped himself across his branch, abdomen first; wincing in pain at how the hardness of the bark dug against where his injury was bandaged just underneath both shirts he wore. Rick grit his teeth and ignored the ache in favor for continuing to focus on pulling himself up so he could sit up the branch without falling down to the ground and having to do this all over again. Pushing up with his arms, which felt like wet noodles from carrying around bags of supplies all day, Rick got to his knees, braced the branch with both hands and then slowly let his right leg drop down to hang off the side. Coming down into a sitting position, wherein he straddled the branch happened less gracefully than he would’ve like in that it caused a sudden jolt of pain to his bits and baubles. Emitting a grunt of aching discomfort, Rick clenched his ass and moved around so he wasn’t sitting on…himself. Upon releasing a slightly aggravated sigh, he finally leaned back against the trunk, which he placed his hands upon, above his head, as he lifted his feet up to place ahead of him on the branch where it began to split off into two smaller branches.  
  
“You okay there, Tarzan?”  
  
Rick tried his best not to be amused by her teasing. “Shut up.”  
  
Her response was simply to giggle under her breath.  
  
“I can already tell that my ass is gonna go numb, and soon at that,” he spoke further. “You good over there?”  
  
“Better than you, clearly.”  
  
“I’m really wishing that tent from earlier had been empty. Actually, I think I could’ve lived with the smell. We could’ve just breathed through our mouths, left the flap open a bit to get some fresh air in.”  
  
“Coulda, shoulda, woulda.”  
  
“Let’s never sleep in a tree again,” he continued, shifting around again to get comfortable.  
  
“We’ve only been up this tree, like, not even five minutes. Grow a pair.”  
  
“I have a pair, thank you very much. I just sat on ‘em trying to get up here. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m sterile now.”  
  
Charlie laughed a bit and then Rick could hear the rustling of a plastic bag from one of the smaller branches. Turning to look to his right, he could see she had a hand in one of the bags closest to her.  
  
“You hungry?” she inquired, pulling out the bag of Fritos from earlier that day.  
  
“Yeah, actually.” Reaching his left hand out, Rick accepted the bag from her after she’d cupped out a handful of the corn chips for herself to eat.  
  
“Want a bottle of water, too?”  
  
“Probably best we share, to conserve what we have, just in case.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Shuffling through another bag, a little further away which made it more awkward for her, Charlie grabbed an unopened bottle of water and twisted off the cap. After a few swigs, she wiped the rim with the sleeve of her jacket and then passed it on to Rick.  
  
After taking a decent chug of the water, Rick leaned back against the trunk, popped a chip into his mouth and stared straight ahead into the darkening woods that surrounded them on all sides. It was still warm out, and the chorus of lovesick male cicadas that had been echoing in the air all day for their female counterparts was starting to fade, just like the last slivers of sunlight. The pair in the tree fell silent. The only noise they produced was the sounds of the Frito bag crinkling when they stuck their hands in and pulled out a few more of the chips and then proceeded with thee crunching noise that came with chewing. Leaving a third of the chips untouched so they had something to eat in the morning, so they could make what food supply they had last longer, Charlie rolled up the Frito bag and returned it to the plastic bag she’d acquired it from.  
  
Rick and Charlie sat in silence a bit longer until they were sitting in complete darkness. They had that Coleman lantern, which hung from a branch like the other bags, including Rick’s duffel bag, but there was no need for the lantern. They had nothing they needed to shed any light upon. All that was left at this point was to get some sleep. Somehow they would find rest up in that tree before continuing on their journey come first light.  
  
“You asleep yet?” Rick asked quietly, folding his arms across his chest after tipping his hat own over his face.  
  
“Hardly.” Then, “Goodnight, though.”  
  
Rick smirked. “Goodnight.”

 

* * *

  
Somehow, during the night, neither of them fell out of the tree. It was like their subconscious was astutely aware of where their bodies were positioned all while their minds were plenty occupied by the task of sleep and its accompanying dreams. Not even the rolling of their heads or occasional jumping in their sleeping from that feeling of falling was enough to make them actually fall. They woke a few times, mostly due to the discomfort of where they were, blinking and wiping away the crust or discharge that formed in the corners of their eyes and then falling quite easily back to sleep.  
  
It was Rick who woke up first again the following morning.  
  
It wasn’t any sunlight that did it, but the distant chirping of birds.  
  
Lifting his head, he took his hat off and set it in his lap as he jerked slightly out of fear when he sensed he wasn’t in a bed; having forgotten where he was. His suddenly quickened heartbeat returned to a normal pace just as quickly when he realized he was fine. Looking around, he saw Charlie was still asleep, with her jacket tucked behind her head. Rick figured she must of taken it off at some point during the night and then balled it up to use as some sort of pillow. He frowned, wishing he would’ve thought to do the same or at least removed his own jacket from his duffel bag and worn it because the temperature had gone down during the night with the absence of sun. He had been made aware of that each time he woke up and felt that slight shiver and had done nothing about it other than “suck it up and deal.”  
  
It wasn’t too cold now though.  
  
Though the sun wasn’t exactly up yet, at least not fully, it was already light enough that he could see better through the trees and could tell the temperature was slowly rising as well.  
  
Letting out a small sigh, Rick pulled his legs up toward his chest and carefully pivoted on his branch, which he held onto while letting his legs dangle down. With a slight grunt, he pushed himself off and jumped own to the ground; emitting a groan from thee ache the jump down caused in his knees. Spring chicken he was not. He took a moment and hunched forward; gripping his knees and rubbing them a bit. Once he stood up straight, he tilted his head from side to side to crack his neck and then proceeded to crack any joint that had stiffened up on him while he slept. Looking up into the tree and seeing that Charlie hadn’t stirred yet, he was careful to be quiet. Just because he was awake didn’t mean he had to disturb her sleep.  
  
Instead he quietly set his hat up upon the branch he’d spent the night on and then began to dig through his duffel bag, just as quietly, for his walkie-talkie. Grabbing hold of it, he clipped it to his utility belt and then looked around again.  
  
Mother nature was calling and he didn’t want to take care of things anywhere that Charlie might catch a glimpse of him in should she wake up while he was in the midst of said things. Walking off a few feet, he slipped behind another tree and relieved himself, swatting at a fly or whatever bug had buzzed by his ear. When he finished up, he looked around the tree and saw Charlie was still asleep. So, Rick continued further away with the intention of being out of Charlie’s earshot so he could make that call out to Morgan with the walkie-talkie.  
  
With the sun starting to stretch further above the horizon, Rick was able to see more through the trees than neither he nor Charlie had been able to see the night before when they’d reached the tree they’d chosen to sleep up in. He was able to see something that made him both frustrated and comforted at the same time.  
  
Walking approximately two hundred feet, give or take, Rick stepped up to the edge of the woods and slipped out from within the trees with a smile upon his face and his hands upon his hips. Free from the canopy of trees, the early morning sun was able to properly bathe over him, causing him to smile just as brightly upward toward the sky and then laugh a little under his breath at how ridiculous this was.  
  
Had they walked extra two hundred or so feet the night before, they would’ve come to this clearing and slept hidden away in the tall grass, so long as no snakes came slithering up and bit them at any point.  
  
Looking around, Rick peered forward and narrowed his gaze. Bringing a hand up over his eyes to shield them from the sun so he could see better, Rick let out another laugh and shook his head at what he was seeing. Seemingly forgetting about the call he’d been planning to make to Morgan, Rick turned around and headed back into the woods and made a beeline straight for Charlie in the tree.  
  
Upon reaching her, Rick lifted a hand up and patted her foot; giving it a slight shake to wake her up.  
  
Not surprisingly, Charlie jerked awake, startled by his gesture and very nearly fell out of the tree. She caught herself though but leaning forward and gripping onto her branch before practically glaring daggers down at him.  
  
“What? What’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing,” he replied, smirking up at her. “Just get down from there and let’s grab our shit. There’s something you gotta see.”  
  
Shooing off his assistance, Charlie jumped down from the tree and her balled up jacket had fallen with her. Crouching forward to pick it up, she gave it a shake and then pulled it on before helping Rick grab their bags of supplies from thee other branches they were hanging from. Saddled down with their belongings as they had been the night before, Rick took lead so he could show Charlie the way.  
  
“What do I have to see?” she wondered, walking in step behind him.  
  
“Just wait.”  
  
After those two hundred or so feet, Charlie realized they were stepping out into a clearing. Letting her shoulders slump in slight defeat, she took in where they were, looked over her shoulder toward where they’d just come from and then back to the clearing.  
  
“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” she whined. “We were this close to escapin’ those fuckin’ woods this entire time? Dear lord, if that ain’t some shit.”  
  
Rick chuckled and nodded. “That ain’t it.” Turning from her, he pointed straight across the clearing, watching as she followed his gaze.  
  
Narrowing her eyes to see, Charlie realized what they were both looking at.  
  
A large white farmhouse.

 


	4. No Man Is An Island

__

_No man is an island,_  
_Entire of itself,_  
_Every man is a piece of the continent,_  
_A part of the main._  
— John Donne, 'No Man Is An Island'

* * *

  
  
Maggie Greene had never been an early riser until after the world fell apart. Previously she had always been more of a night owl, which had led to many a morning where she overslept and missed the first or first couple of classes when she’d been in college. No matter how hard she had tried, she just hadn’t been able to go to bed at a reasonable hour and she paid the price every morning by being late to class or getting started on her chores around her father’s farm, or by simply being too tired to properly focus on anything until after her second or third cup of coffee had kicked in. But now, with nothing much to occupy her time in the evenings, the only thing to really do come nightfall was to go to sleep. And nowadays it was like the roles had reversed because most mornings she tended to be the first one up and around in the house.  
  
Like most mornings now, she woke up and got dressed, and then went downstairs to make a fresh pot of coffee. When it was ready, she would grab a book she’d been reading or rereading, and head out onto the porch and sit down upon the same wooden chair she always sat in. she pulled it close to the railing so she could prop her legs up upon the top rail; crossing her legs, one over the other, at the ankles.  
  
Today started out like any other day since the end of the world they knew.  
  
There was never anything overly exciting to do, despite the dead that roamed the earth now, and those that wandered onto the farm were taken care of accordingly. But those moments were few and far between. If Maggie wanted excitement, she took her horse out and went into town looking for some supplies. Usually it was more of an excuse to have a change of scenery and get away from life cooped up on the farm for a little while. She knew her father wasn’t too keen on her going off like that too often; insistent that they had all they needed on the farm. Giving him the excuse of needing “female supplies” usually worked in her favor.  
  
But today there would be no heading into town or going for a ride on her horse. Today she was starting the day with coffee, a trashy romance novel she was borrowing from Patricia, the wife of her father’s ranch hand Otis, and after that there really was nothing to do. With little to do these days, she was on top of her chores and sometimes, like now, ahead of the game; having gotten a head start the day before so she could lounge around today.  
  
Flipping to the page she’d left off at the day before, she hoped Patricia didn’t mind her dog-earing the pages. Scanning the words on the page to figure out which paragraph she was at, something in the distance caught her eye through the balusters.  
  
Something was moving at the outskirts of the farm, near the tree line.  
  
Her first instinct was to assume it was the dead having wandered onto the property again, which would lead her to heading inside to alert her father and Otis who would handle it. But something seemed different.  
  
Dropping her legs down and planting her feet firmly upon the floor, Maggie set her coffee cup and the book on the floor as well beside the chair. Standing up, she placed her hands upon her hips and squinted in an attempt to see better, but all she could determine was that there were two bulky figures approaching. A little concerned, she turned and pulled open the screen door and grabbed up the pair of binoculars sitting on a table near the door. Returning outside, Maggie brought the binoculars up to her eyes and peered through.  
  
“Holy shit,” she mumbled. Dropping the binoculars, she looked over her shoulder. “Dad!”  
  
After a few moments, Maggie could hear her father’s footsteps from inside the door mere seconds before the screen door swung open to reveal an aging man in his early seventies, with his snow white hair and a stalwart disposition, named Hershel. His blue eyes darted toward his eldest child first out of concern, and sidled up beside her on the porch.  
  
“What is it, darlin’?”  
  
With a simple nod, Maggie gestured at the pair of figures coming across the field at a rather casual pace. Handing off the binoculars to her father, she looked at him expectantly. “I can’t tell if they’re alive or…infected.”  
  
Hershel brought the binoculars to his eyes and peered through; taking a moment to refocus the lenses and settle his view upon the two approaching bodies at the far end of his property. “They’re not infected,” he determined. “They’re just regular people. But we can’t take chances. They could be bit.” Dropping the binoculars down, he gave his daughter a pointed look. “Go get Otis.”

 

* * *

  
  
“I feel like this field is goin' on forever.”  
  
Rick glanced at Charlie with a smile; squinting only one eye due to the morning sun shining at an awkward angle. “At least there’s an end in sight. This farm could be a good place to set up as a base; especially if I find my family. We can all set up here and make a decent life for ourselves. If my friend Shane survived all this and we find him, too, I’ll introduce you two. I think you’d like him. You kinda remind me of him.”  
  
Charlie met Rick’s gaze and frowned. “Are you already tryin’ to play matchmaker?”  
  
With a shrug, Rick chuckled and bent his head down. “I think it’d be kinda nice, all of us living together. One big happy family. Plus, Shane actually settling down? That’s something I’ve always wanted to see.”  
  
Charlie shook her head and turned her gaze forward toward the farmhouse. “How ‘bout we leave the guns for shootin’ and not for jumpin’, alright?”  
  
“Yeah, alright.” Rick continued to chuckle a bit more, and also resumed staring ahead toward the farmhouse, when his pace slowed somewhat.  
  
“What is it?” she asked, sensing his movements were no longer matching hers.  
  
“There’s people on the front porch.”  
  
Charlie focused her gaze specifically to the large wraparound porch and counted what looked to be about four people standing clumped together. “Well, shit. Other survivors.”  
  
“Let’s just hope they’re friendly.”

 

* * *

  
  
Hershel kept his gaze focused on the approaching pair; squinting to better assist his vision and make out any detail that might be helpful. When Maggie rejoined her father on the porch, Otis, his farmhand and friend, came out of the house with his shotgun and trailed quickly by his wife Patricia. Curious by the sudden hullabaloo, Hershel’s youngest daughter Beth and her boyfriend Jimmy soon joined the others on the porch to see what the matter was.  
  
Looking behind him and at Otis’ hand, Hershel frowned. “You know I don’t like the gun in the house.”  
  
“Sorry, Hersh. I was cleaning it last night before bed,” Otis apologized. “Just forgot to leave it out here by the door.”  
  
“Is it even loaded?” Maggie wondered. “We might need it to be.”  
  
“I got some shells in my pocket.” The heavier set man patted his side pocket as if to prove he wasn’t lying.  
  
“I’d prefer we not use the gun at all,” Hershel commented, a slight sigh present in his voice.  
  
“You want me and Jimmy to go get the snare poles instead?”  
  
“We won’t need them.” Hershel gestured to the approaching pair with a nod of his head as Jimmy went and grabbed up the binoculars. “They’re alive. But don’t let your guards down. We don’t know if they’re sick or not.” Walking toward the top of the porch steps, Hershel walked down. When the pair got close enough for speaking distance where he wouldn’t have to shout, Hershel held his hand up. “That’s far enough,” he warned sternly, as Otis stepped down behind him with the shotgun held in front.  
  
Even though it wasn’t loaded, these strangers didn’t need to know that. The presence of it, as much as Hershel loathed it, was more for the intimidation factor.  
  
Rick moved to step more in front of Charlie; taking point on this interaction instead of her. Letting his thumbs take the brunt of the weight of the bags he was carrying, he held his fingers up with palms faced forward. He kept his gaze on older man with the white hair who had spoken all while setting his bags down slowly and carefully, and then kept his hands up to show he meant no harm.  
  
“We’re sorry if we’re trespassing,” he began, mentally counting the amount of people in front of him and Charlie and checking for any other weapons beside the shotgun pointed at them by the heavier man. “We’re just looking for somewhere safe to stay for the time being. We saw the house from the edge of those woods back there earlier and it seemed like a good option for us.” Lowering his right hand, he pointed to himself. “I’m Rick Grimes. I was a sheriff’s deputy up in King County. I’m trying to find my family, my wife and son. This is Charlie Reid. She’s my friend. Her mother was killed two days ago. We’ve been trying to make our way together since.”  
  
Hershel didn’t reply right away; taking a moment to assess what he’d heard. “Your wife and son aren’t here, so you can keep moving.”  
  
Rick’s shoulders slumped slightly and he dropped his arms as well. With a brief look over his shoulder at Charlie, he frowned. Looking back toward the old man and the others, he continued. “Sir, we don’t know where else to go.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter. It can’t be here.”  
  
Charlie did her best not to scowl. “Why’s that?”  
  
Hershel flitted his gaze from Rick to her. “Because I said so.”  
  
Charlie snickered under her breath. “We get it. You don’t know us from Adam. We don’t know you either. You could be cannibals, or worse—Scientologists.”  
  
Rick knitted his brow together. Was she trying to diffuse the tension with humor?  
  
“I watched my mother die. She was all I had left in this world. I lost my entire family and my home in one fell swoop, and I lucked out in meetin’ Rick. He’s helped me survive, as I have him,” she continued. “Last night we slept in a tree. No lie. The night before that on some pews in a church. Not exactly comfortable. That’s not how people should live. Isn’t there some sort of livin’ situation we could agree upon?” Charlie looked over at the brown barn in the distance. “We don’t have to stay in your house. If I were you, just meetin’ us, I sure as hell wouldn’t want us in the house. We’re strangers, after all. But, maybe we can we stay in your barn?”  
  
“No,” Hershel’s reply came quickly. “The barn is off limits.”  
  
Charlie sighed. “Okay, then, how ‘bout a shed?”  
  
“Daddy…” Maggie spoke quietly, coming down from the porch and grabbing onto the elbow of her father’s sleeve.  
  
Rick and Charlie fell silent, waiting on a response.  
  
Sharing a look with his daughter, Hershel considered the options, but still wasn’t convinced about these two people. “My name’s Hershel Greene and this is my farm, and I won’t have—”  
  
“Greene?” Charlie interrupted. “Any relation to Arnold?”  
  
Hershel stopped and stared straight at her, as did Maggie. “He was my nephew.”  
  
“Was,” Charlie repeated; understanding what it meant. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“How’d you know him?” Maggie asked, folding her arms across her chest.  
  
“He was a year behind me in high school. Asked me to the homecomin’ dance when he was just a freshman, but I turned him down,” she added somewhat regretfully. “Hadn’t seen him since I left school.”  
  
Hershel was still staring at her; both somewhat contemplative and judgmental in his gaze as he was still determining how to further approach these people before him. His initial instinct was that of fight or flight when it came to strangers coming onto his property in this new world. Part of him wanted to frighten them off with the threat of violence, which he abhorred, and part of him wanted to just lock his family and friends in the house and hope Rick and Charlie would just leave on their own accord without having to be asked a second time. But, then, there was the Christian in him, yelling in his ear about what Jesus would do and how he should be a good Samaritan by helping his fellow man, the less fortunate.  
  
“I have a tent.”  
  
Rick, Charlie, Hershel and Maggie all looked over at Otis who had since lowered his shotgun and had the most unassuming expression upon his face.  
  
“Upstairs in our closet,” he continued. “Patricia and I brought it with us when we came to stay here, just in case.”  
  
“It  _is_  just collecting dust,” the older blonde, his wife Patricia, added.  
  
Rick and Charlie could only just stand there awkwardly and wait; looking between the group in front of them as they talked things over amongst themselves.  
  
“The right thing to do—the  _Christian_  thing to do would be to let them have the tent,” Maggie spoke, low enough only for her father’s ears as she placed a hand gently upon his upper arm.  
  
Hershel turned his gaze to his eldest daughter and gave a subtle sigh. “I know what the Christian thing to do is.”  
  
“Well, then…” A small smirk toyed at the corner of her mouth. “Do what Jesus would do.”  
  
Looking over at Rick and Charlie, Hershel nodded at them. “Give us a minute.” Off their silent compliance, Hershel turned his back slightly to them and continued his tête-à-tête with Maggie. “Be honest—you’re just bored and looking for new faces to interact with.”  
  
Maggie shrugged. “That might be part of it,” she continued speaking quietly for only his ears. “But I’m not getting a threatening vibe from these two. I think they’re good people. I think we should give them a chance, daddy. I mean, have you noticed the man, Rick…he’s carrying a large bag full of all kinds of guns and he hasn’t even let his hand gone anywhere near the pistol on his hip. Neither of them has tried to get the upper hand. They were carrying bags of food and water and whatnot. If they wanted to try and take this place with force, regardless of whether or not they knew anyone was here, do you really think they would’ve just walked right up, in full view without guns drawn? If I were them, I sure as hell wouldn’t.”  
  
The more Maggie spoke to him one on one, the more Hershel could not deny what the right thing to do was. Though Maggie was still young, he trusted her opinions and her gut feelings. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he glanced briefly back toward Rick and Charlie before staring more pointedly upon Maggie. “I don’t want to regret letting them stay. I don’t want this to go south in any way. There won’t be any second chances. The first time they do anything to jeopardize this farm and our family’s safety, they’re gone.”  
  
Maggie raised an eyebrow and smirked up at her father. “Don’t tell _me_ that, daddy. Tell _them_.”  
  
Hershel frowned and turned from his eldest. Letting his eyes peruse the ground first, he took his time bringing said eyes upward; choosing to give his attention primarily to Rick. “You can stay,” he spoke as if he was a child relenting to a meal consisting of nothing but lima beans. “Otis will give you his tent. You put it together and you can set it up by those trees just behind you.”  
  
“We’ve got five wells on our land. House draws directly from number one. Number-two well is right over there,” Maggie spoke, taking a step forward so that she stood parallel to her father, and pointed in the direction of the second well in question. “We use it for the cattle but it’s just as pure. Take what you need. There’s a cart and containers in the generator shed behind the house.”  
  
Rick and Charlie let their shoulders slump. It was done with a sense of relief; feeling more at ease with the present company.  
  
“Thank you. Thank you  _so_  much. We truly appreciate it,” Rick professed.  
  
“I just want to know, that if you do anything that puts the safety of my farm and my family in jeopardy, there will be consequences,” Hershel reiterated what he’d mentioned to Maggie. “I don’t mean a slap on a wrist and banning you from any of the wells for a week as punishment. There will be no second chances. First offense and you’re gone from this place, do you understand— _both_  of you?”  
  
Charlie nodded. “We understand,” she assured. “We’ll keep out of your hair. We’ll find our own food and any other supplies we might need. We just need this place as a way station of sorts — just a place to lay our heads when we’re not out lookin’ for Rick’s family.”  
  
“In our downtime, we’ll offer our help to you wherever you might need it to maintain this farm. If you need help repairing a fence or any gardening or cleaning— _anything_ : just ask,” Rick insisted. “We’ll earn our keep until the time comes where we move on or you kick us out. We’ll do whatever it is you need for us to prove our worth.”  
  
“And if any other people, not  _good_  people find their way here, we’ll defend this place alongside you,” Charlie added, catching Rick’s glance toward her out the corner of her eye. “We can be friends, all of us, and I will fight for my friends. To the death if need be.”  
  
“Well, let’s hope nothing like that should ever happen,” Hershel muttered.  
  
Charlie shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think my mama was gonna get murdered two days ago by a bunch of assholes. Point is, shit happens and when it hits the fan, we’ll hit back.” Seeing how uncomfortable what she was saying seemed to make everyone except for Maggie, Charlie frowned and sighed. “Times are tough. We gotta be tougher. The way the world is now, it’s best to stick together. After all, no man is an island, right?”  
  
“I can’t fault you there.” With a nod, and feeling slightly better about siding with Maggie’s opinion of the pair in front of him, Hershel smiled ever so slightly. “Otis, you can put the shotgun aside and get that tent, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“Sure thing, Hersh,” Otis muttered before turning and retreating into the house as quickly as his hefty physique would allow.  
  
Hershel moved closer toward Rick and Charlie; closing the gap between them considerably. “There’s one other thing to make clear before all is said and done with setting you two up here. It hasn’t gone unnoticed; the large bag of guns you got there on your back, Rick, or the Colt you got holstered at your side. I’d prefer you not carrying guns on my property. We've managed so far without turning this into an armed camp.”  
  
“Maybe before the world fell apart that might be reasonable,” Charlie contested, hands on her hips. “But this isn’t that world anymore.”  
  
Rick could sense her feathers starting to ruffle and held a hand up to her, signaling his turn to talk. “Look, we’re guests here. This is your property and we will respect that.” Although his eyes were on the older man, he was more so waiting on Charlie’s response, which he hoped to be a silent one. “We won’t carry our guns, loaded or otherwise, on us. We’ll keep them in the tent or in whatever vehicle we might find to use.”  
  
“But if an outside threat arises, should a herd of walkin’ dead or some group of ne’er-do-wells make their way onto this land, onto your farm, you’re gonna be prayin’ to baby Jesus we can get to those guns lickety-split,” Charlie retorted, getting her two cents in there, regardless of what Rick might’ve been hoping. Despite her obvious feelings about not having a gun on her for protection, her show of compliance with Hershel and solidarity with Rick was to remove the gun she’d been carrying from the back of her pants, check that the safety was on and dump into the duffel bag upon Rick’s back. After chewing on her bottom lip for a few seconds, she added, more humbly, “Thank you, though. For this.”  
  
Hershel nodded, then looked back at Maggie and then at the house. It was an awkward couple of moments — a minute that felt like an hour — until Otis reappeared, tent in hand. The heftier man let the screen door creak open and slam closed behind him before trudging down the front steps and holding the carrying bag containing the tent inside up to Rick.  
  
“Here ya go,” Otis remarked with a simple smile upon his face.   
  
As if looking for permission to accept the tent, even though it was already decided to let Rick and Charlie use it, Rick still looked to Hershel first before finally reaching out and taking the carrying bag from Otis. “Thank you,” he remarked, though it was mostly said to Hershel rather than Otis.  
  
“You’re welcome,” Otis replied, and then took half a step back behind Hershel.  
  
“Alright,” Hershel began. He looked over at Patricia, Beth and Jimmy, still up on the porch. “Y’all head back inside and get on with the rest of your day. Ain’t nothing more to see out here.” Once they took the hint and obediently slipped back inside the house, Hershel looked back at Rick and Charlie. “I genuinely believe you’re not bad people, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t fully trust you just yet. It is a trust that will have to be earned. I am letting you stay here on my farm until the time comes when you find your family, if you find your family, and then I expect you to move on from here. Are we clear on that?”  
  
Rick nodded. “We are,” he answered without missing a beat.  
  
“Good.”  
  
“What if it takes months?” Charlie wondered, looking between both men. “What if it takes half a year or more to find them? What if we don’t find them at all? Is there a time limit you have in mind for seein’ us off your property?”  
  
Flitting his eyes from Rick’s face to hers, Hershel smirked ever so slightly. “Let’s just take it one day at a time, shall we?”  
  
Charlie smirked back, a little more pronounced than him. “I guess we can live with that.”  
  
Hershel gave them both a nod and then nodded toward the grouping of trees behind them. “You can go ahead and get set up now. Like my daughter said, you can go on and use the well over there. It’s the closest one besides the one the house draws directly from. Containers, if you need them, are in the shed. If you need supplies for cooking or washing up, I expect you two to find those things on your own if you don’t already have them. There’s a very small town a mile up the main road with a pharmacy where you might find some things.”  
  
“Steve’s Pharmacy?” Charlie asked.  
  
“Yeah, that’s the one.”  
  
Charlie looked to Rick, caught his curious gaze for a moment and then looked once more at Hershel. “Yeah, we were in that small town two days ago. Holed up in the bar there for a little bit with a horse.”  
  
Hershel found this interesting; raising an eyebrow to convey as much. “What happened to the horse?”  
  
“Walkers.”  
  
“The infected?”  
  
Charlie nodded. “Yeah.”  
  
“That’s a shame.”  
  
“Yeah, it was a good horse,” Rick agreed.  
  
They all looked around at each other and then Charlie crouched down to pick up the bags she’d been carrying earlier. “Thanks again for lettin' us squat on your land.” It was a subtle hint at ending any further small talk and letting her and Rick get to setting up the tent, organizing their supplies and then figuring out their next move.  
  
“Just holler if you need anything,” Maggie spoke up.  
  
“We will,” Rick replied, slinging the strap to the carrying bag onto the opposite shoulder from where the duffel bag of weapons was, and then bent to lift up the other bags that he, too, had been carrying.  
  
With an awkward smiles and polite nods, Rick and Charlie began to walk over toward the grouping of trees while Hershel, Maggie and Otis headed up to the house; temporarily parting ways.

 

* * *

  
  
Setting the tent up in a spot among the trees that was flat enough, and not bumpy due to tree roots, took under five minutes. With not blankets, pillows or anything other than to polyester material of the tent floor to sleep on, all that was left for Rick and Charlie to do was place their supplies inside the tent. The duffel bag of guns was close to the door flap for easy access, in the event that they were outside the tent and needed to a gun and ammo as quickly as possible. Any food or drinks they kept toward the back of the tent, between the sides they would each be sleeping on. Unlike Rick who had a spare white shirt and pair of black jeans inside the duffel bag with the guns, which he had removed from the bag and folded at the foot of his side of the tent, Charlie had no clothes other than the clothes on her back and would need to make a run into that small town and rummage through a few houses to find things that would fit her. She even broached the subject of making their way to her mother’s trailer in the next day or so, mainly so she could bury her mother instead of leaving her to rot inside the trailer, but to also claim her own belongings she had been forced to leave behind when she fled to save her life.  
  
After setup was complete, Charlie looked around the trees for any rocks and stones that were large enough to create an enclosure of sorts so they could have a place for a fire to keep warm in the evening before turning in and a place to cook any food. She didn’t find much of anything and quickly gave up the search. They would need to find some sort kindling in the woods so they could even have a fire in the first place and both felt it was too soon to be asking Hershel to spare any of his firewood that was already cut.  
  
“We have enough water right now. Tomorrow we can check out that well,” Rick suggested; removing his jacket, folding it up and setting it on the ground so he could sit on it. “It’ll be nice to wash up and feel a little less like roadkill.”  
  
Charlie smiled and mimicked him; removing her own jacket and placing it on the ground to sit upon it. “We definitely need to make it back to my mama’s trailer now,” she commented. “We had plenty of shampoo and other bathroom essentials there — so long as those fuckwits didn’t go inside and take anything.” Charlie looked down at the grass between her legs she was picking at as she sat cross-legged. “That’d be the only upside of them chasin’ after me. Maybe they didn’t bother wastin’ any time lootin’ the trailer and just focused on me instead. Fingers crossed they were small-minded and not lookin’ at the bigger picture.”  
  
Rick nodded. “Why don’t we do that tomorrow then? Maybe Hershel will lend us that blue truck of his.”  
  
“You think he’d actually give it up?”  
  
He shrugged. “Probably not. Maybe he knows where we could find some vehicles that are close enough to the farm and will actually run.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
Both fell silent for a few moments; looking at the ground and then around at the house and the surrounding farm land that they could see from where they sat. The house was almost directly ahead of them, the large ominous brown barn was to their left where the land sloped slightly toward one of the many tree lines and just to the left of the barn was the well they would be allowed to use and a windmill near the well.  
  
“Kinda glad this place wasn’t empty,” Charlie muttered, pulling a blade of grass out of the soil and rolling it between her thumb and index finger. “I mean, you’re good company an’ all, but variety is the spice of life, ya know?”  
  
Rick turned to his left and just stared at her with an eyebrow raised and his lips curling upward slightly in a smile. “That so?”  
  
Charlie grinned and looked down at the blade of grass instead of meeting his gaze. “Hershel’s oldest daughter and that big guy Otis seem nice enough. We should probably find out everyone else’s names so we don’t have to call them all ‘hey you’ or ‘whatshername’.”  
  
“All in due time, I guess.”  
  
“It’s still so early in the day. I doubt it’s anywhere near noon yet…”  
  
Rick glanced down at his wristwatch. “It’s only nine-thirty.”  
  
“So we should probably do somethin’,” Charlie remarked. “We can’t just sit here all day like two lumps on a log, doing jack squat.” Rick chuckled a bit under his breath, causing Charlie to finally look up at him. “What?”  
  
“Nothing really. Just the way you talk; your bluntness and your turn of phrase. You remind me of my friend Shane. Just, you know…female.”  
  
“Can I take that as a compliment?”  
  
Rick held her gaze for a moment. “You most certainly are welcome to.” Then, he smiled a bit ruefully. “He and I are the same age, with me only a few months older than him, but I always kind of looked up to him like he was a big brother. He was the one who always spoke his mind and was never too afraid to tell it like it is. I admired that. I could never really do it myself. If he wanted something, he went for it; no holds barred. He never really second-guessed anything he did or said. Me? I’ve never like talking much. Hated talking on the telephone, even. I preferred keeping to myself when I could. Was never one to talk about what I really felt or wanted out of life. I mean, don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed my life…before all this.”  
  
“You only just enjoyed it? You didn’t love it?”  
  
Rick shrugged. “Does anyone ever truly love their life?”  
  
After a moment of thought, Charlie nodded. “The Most Interesting Man in the World from those Dos Equis commercials. He  _absolutely_  loves his life.”  
  
Rick chuckled more heartily this time. “Yeah, and he’s also fictional.”  
  
“Alright then. Bill Gates. He was one of the richest people in the world, worth tens of billions of dollars,” she offered up as a better suggestion. “I shouldn’t really refer to him in the past tense, though. Smart guy like him probably had his ear to the ground and knew the world was gonna fall apart like it did and built some sort of state of the art, high tech underground bunker in advance for him and his family to survive in for the next fifty years.”  
  
“That seems likely.”  
  
“A guy like that, with that kind of money and those resources,  _definitely_  loved his life.”  
  
“Having that kind of money would’ve been nice, but I don’t know that I’d want that kind of life.” Rick frowned. “I still would’ve lived more simply, I think. I mean, I never would’ve wanted for anything, my family sure as hell would’ve been set for life and not wanted for anything either, but the hassle that would come with having all that money, can you imagine?”  
  
The pair fell silent again. Perhaps they were thinking about what having billions of dollars at their disposal in the old world would’ve been like, maybe they were just thinking about their loved ones or maybe their minds were blank with the conversation fading.   
  
The screen door at the front of the farmhouse brought them out of whatever reverie they were in and drew their eyes toward the figure coming out of the house and making a beeline for them.  
  
It was Maggie, with what looked to be a towering armful of blankets and a plastic grocery bag filled with a few bulky objects.  
  
Both Rick and Charlie stood up to greet her when she approached.  
  
“Hey,” Maggie spoke first.  
  
“Hey,” Rick repeated; placing his hands on his hips. “I, uh…we didn’t really get properly introduced earlier. I don’t think we caught your name.”  
  
“It’s Maggie,” she replied with a small smile. “I caught your names, though. Rick and Charlie, was it?” Both nodded, and then she held her arms out to hand over everything she’d carried from the house. “It’s not much, but I convinced my father not to be such a curmudgeon and let me bring you two some supplies you can use. Spare blankets no one was using, extra pots and pans and silverware so you can properly cook and eat any food you have or find, and some throw pillows, because throw pillows hardly seem necessary anymore, but can help you two out.”  
  
“Oh my Lord, thank you,” Charlie chuckled; taking in such a bounty. “You really didn’t have to but we really do appreciate this.”  
  
Maggie shrugged. “Like I told my dad, it’s not just the Christian thing to do, it’s the right thing; helping those less fortunate and clearly you’re the less fortunate right now.”  
  
“We certainly are.”  
  
Rick jumped in to relieve Maggie of the blankets and throw pillows which were starting to teeter and threatening to fall out of her arms. “Give your dad our thanks again as well.”  
  
“There’s no need,” Maggie insisted. “I mean, really. He doesn’t know I also slipped a bar of soap, couple of wash rags and a travel size of toothpaste in the bag. We’ll just keep this between us.”  
  
All three looked at each other with amused smiles.  
  
“I haven’t brushed my teeth in three days. This is like winnin’ the lottery,” Charlie quipped, accepting the bag and staring down into it at the pots, silverware and couple of toiletries.  
  
Rick nudged her and smirked. “I guess you could say we feel like Bill Gates.”  
  
Charlie looked up at him and rolled her eyes before chuckling again.  
  
“So, um, whenever you two are planning on heading into that poor excuse of a town, let me know. I’ll go with you. I’ve gone a few times already. My dad’s not too keen on me leaving the farm, but knows I can hold my own.”  
  
“Well, tomorrow we’re plannin’ on makin’ the trek to my mama’s trailer, to bury her,” Charlie admitted; her jovial mood turning solemn. “When she was killed I had to leave real fast and not look back. But now that we have this place to stay at, we have the opportunity to do these important things. For me, burying my mama. For Rick, finding his family.”  
  
“You went to high school with Arnold, which is the same high school I graduated from. So you couldn’t have lived too far away,” Maggie deduced. “I’ll go with you. On our way back, after you do what you gotta do, we’ll stop in town and we can get a couple things from the pharmacy. Maybe we can even snag a shot of whiskey from the bar.”  
  
Rick and Charlie looked to each other and both seemed to be on the same wavelength; thinking about the shootout with those thugs out in the streets of that little town which was apparently only a mile away from the farm. The worry of those thugs still being in the area or holed up in that town was evident, but they didn’t want to worry Maggie any or give any just cause for Hershel to boot them off the farm so soon after securing a place there.  
  
“I get the feeling your father wouldn’t be too keen on letting you go off alone with us,” Rick spoke honestly.  
  
“Better with two people he, himself, said he believes to be good people than for me to go alone, wouldn’t you agree?”  
  
“I can’t find fault in that logic.” Rick shrugged and glanced at Charlie. “I think it’d be best though if we knew your father was okay with it.”  
  
“And unless you have a spare vehicle we can all travel in, I hope you’ve got good shoes for walkin’.”  
  
“I usually take a horse. But we only have the two horses left,” Maggie replied. “We can use Otis’ truck. I’m sure he won’t mind.”  
  
“That blue one?”  
  
“Yeah. He barely uses it anymore. It just sits there.”  
  
Rick sighed. “Alright, then it’s  _tentatively_  a plan.”  
  
Maggie nodded. “I’ll let my dad know and if he has issue with it, I’m sure he’ll tell you as much.” With an impish smile, she shrugged and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “But I’ll be going with you regardless. I have such a lovely smile, it’s hard for my dad to say no to me.”  
  
Rick and Charlie laughed a bit.  
  
“Okay then,” Charlie nodded. “As of right now, tomorrow mornin’, bright and early we head out?”  
  
“Sure thing,” Maggie agreed. “We’ll pass through town first before anything else so we might as well hit up the pharmacy then, or I suppose on the way back would work just as fine, too.”  
  
Rick nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that sounds fine.”  
  
Looking over to her right and their left, Maggie gestured toward the well, specifically. “You need any help with the well?”  
  
“We were thinking of putting it off till tomorrow, but now that the plan is to head out, I suppose we should do it today; to gather up some water so we can wash up a bit. If we wait until the day after tomorrow we might start to rival walkers over who smells worse,” Rick jested.  
  
“Walkers? That what you’re calling them?” Maggie wondered, referring to the dead.  
  
Charlie nodded. “All they do is walk and walk and walk. It seemed rather fittin’.”  
  
“It’s kind of a nice term, too. Doesn’t make ‘em sound so scary.”  
  
“And I could think of  _plenty_  of unpleasant things to call them.”  
  
Rick snickered. “I’m sure you could.” Off the knowing look he shot Charlie, he smiled. “Well, let’s put this stuff inside the tent and then we can get started on pumping that water.”  
  
Maggie nodded at both of them and took a step back, turning to look somewhat toward the house. “I’ll go get the wheelbarrow and some containers from the shed for you. I’ll meet you at the well.”  
  
“Sure thing.”  
  
Without another word, Maggie turned completely and walked off; her hands removed from her back pockets and her arms now swinging slightly at her sides with each step she took. Rick and Charlie watched after her retreating form for a moment before looking instead at each other. Charlie leaned down and unzipped the tent; stepping inside and kneeling down on the floor to sort through the supplies in the plastic bag while Rick stepped inside after her and dropped the blankets and throw pillows to the ground.  
  
“She said she’s been into that town before a few times, but she likely hasn’t been there in the last couple of days since we passed through,” Rick muttered. “She’s gonna see those bodies in the street and questions might get raised about if we’re really the good people her and her father think we are.”  
  
Charlie looked up at him as she set the pots and silverware up by their food supplies. “We  _are_  good people.”  
  
“But she might start to doubt that.”  
  
“So, we tell the truth. Those assholes were the bad guys. They’re the ones who killed my mama. They followed us and tried to kill us, too, but they clearly failed. We did what we had to do. There was no other choice. It was our lives or theirs.”  
  
“ _I_  understand that,  _you_  understand that, but  _she_  might not.”  
  
“She doesn’t seem like a stick in the mud, Rick. I think she  _will_  understand.” Charlie reached over and grabbed at one of the throw pillows. “I’m layin’ claim to this pillow, by the way. It’s bigger.”  
  
Rick shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“You can have whatever blanket is longer, since you’re taller than I am.”  
  
“Seems fair.”  
  
Charlie shot him a glowering look at how complacent the tone of his responses was. “Stop being so agreeable.”  
  
“You  _want_  me to fight you over who has the bigger pillow and the bigger blanket?”  
  
Her frown turned upside down into a slightly mischievous smirk. “Not, like,  _genuine_  fightin’, obviously. Playful arguin’ can be fun. I like to be able to shoot the shit with my friends and bust some balls.” Setting the pillow she had claimed at the top of the right side of the tent where she would be sleeping, her shoulders lifted and fell in a small shrug. “I blame my mama and growing up being friends with mostly boys.”  
  
“Tom boy?” he inquired; taking the smaller throw pillow and tossing it at the head of his side of the tent.  
  
“No, actually. I was very much a girly girl as a child, believe it or not. I loved wearin’ dresses and playin’ with Barbie dolls. I just also loved climbing trees, playing with bugs and watching horror and actions movies, too. And, when I got old enough, I discovered the wonderful world of cussin’ and truly discovered myself.”  
  
Rick let out a laugh. “I’ve got this image in my head of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, dropping the F bomb left and right.”  
  
“That’s basically what happened,” she laughed along. “The wonderful world of cussin’, as awesome as it is, got me into a world of shit in school, as you can believe. I lost my temper with a teacher once, my senior year. He was a dick in the first place, and singled me out for a failin’ grade on a test paper, and I was just not havin’ the best day ever to begin with, so I verbally tore into him without a care. Got sent to the principal’s office, got suspended for a week. I almost got expelled and not allowed to graduate. I would’ve had to repeat my senior year, but my mama, bless her soul, worked her magic. Came down to the school and convinced the principal that I was on my period—I wasn’t—and me being put on the spot as I was had been like backin’ a scared animal into a corner. She said I was simply scared and lashed out for being singled out and embarrassed so callously by my teacher.” Charlie began to truly smile at the memory. “Then my mama went as far as to bring up her friendship with one of her patrons at the bar, who happened to be the town sheriff at the time; a guy who was known to be  _very_  intimidatin’ and  _maybe_  a  _little_  corrupt. In the end, they came to an agreement that I would only be suspended the one week and then a week of detention after school when I returned and apologize to the teacher.”  
  
Rick listened with amusement; shaking his head and smiling. “Did you apologize?”  
  
“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, standing up. “I apologized for cussin’ instead of just insultin’ him in a more clever way that would’ve gone over his head.  _That_  got me a second week of detention but it was worth it.”  
  
“You are  _definitely_  a female Shane,” Rick chuckled. “He pulled shit like that all the time in school and even after. But he would just smile and throw a few compliments around and suddenly all was forgiven and right with the world.”  
  
“Shane sounds like someone I would either be absolute best friends with or be enemies with. You either get along with people like yourself or you hate them because they remind you of yourself.”  
  
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Poking his head out of the tent, Rick noticed Maggie was already heading toward the well, pushing a wheelbarrow in front of her. “C’mon. Maggie’s almost to the well.”  
  
“Oh yeah.”  
  
Stepping out of the tent alongside Rick, Charlie joined him in heading after Maggie, but not before zipping the tent up behind them. They both glanced toward the house, both seeming to sense the presence of a person on the front porch and we unsurprised to find Hershel lingering near the top of the front steps; looking after his daughter and then throwing a nod of acknowledgment Rick and Charlie’s way, which they reciprocated.  
  
Picking up the pace to close the gap between themselves and Maggie, Rick and Charlie passed through another small grouping of trees and then through the gated opening in a fence, beyond which was the well and its rusty spigot, as well as the windmill.  
  
“This spigot is a bit harder to pump than the one we use closer to the house. This one doesn’t get used as frequently,” Maggie remarked. “You can imagine how much harder it is to pump the other three we got on the farm.”  
  
“I’ll do it,” Rick offered, stepping over to it and reaching for the handle.  
  
Removing the containers from the wheelbarrow that she had taken from the shed, Maggie set them on the ground but positioned only one under the spout. As Rick began to slightly arduous task of pumping the water out of the spigot and into the container, Charlie wandered over to the well, which had wooden planks over the top with a hole in the center; the edges broken and chipped like a bowling ball had busted through it. A sound down in the well drew Charlie nearer and when she reached it, placed her palms down on the planks and peered down through the hole.  
  
“Well, fuck.” Turning around to look over at both Rick and Maggie, she gave a short wave at them. “Stop pumpin’ and come see this.”  
  
Curious as to what she was referring to, Rick and Maggie stepped away from the spigot and sauntered over to Charlie’s side.  
  
“What is it?” Maggie wondered.  
  
“Take a gander.”  
  
As both leaned forward to look down into the hole, Charlie just stood there with her crossed over her chest, lost in contemplation for a moment.  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” Rick muttered, noticing the waterlogged walker stuck at the bottom of the well, just casually sloshing around with nowhere to go. “What do we do now?”  
  
“We can’t shoot it,” Charlie decided. “We could contaminate the water and that’s if it bein’ down there, stewin’ in it, hasn’t already done the job.”  
  
“Is there anything to pull it out?”  
  
“Just some rope,” Maggie replied. “We can tie some canned ham to the end of it. If we get it to grab on, we can pull it up.”  
  
Charlie shook her head. “No, these things don’t have the wherewithal or dexterity to hold onto a rope so it can be lifted out. And that thing ain’t gonna be interested in canned meats. The dead didn’t rise from the grave with a hankerin’ for Spam.”  
  
“Maybe we can tie the rope into some sort of lasso and throw it down,” Rick offered up. “Hopefully the rope catches.”  
  
“We can use the truck. Tie the other end on the back bumper. Someone gets behind the wheel, puts a little gas on the pedal and we can yank this motherfucker up,” Charlie suggested, not noticing the way Maggie smirked at her swearing. “Once it’s free of the water, anything we pump, we boil to purify it of any possible contamination.”  
  
“I’ll get Otis and Jimmy to help,” Maggie announced and then leaving before anything else could be suggested.  
  
Stepping closer to Rick, Charlie sighed. “Or we could just not use this well and see if we can use the one they use for the house. Or use whatever well is next in being closer in proximity.”  
  
“That can be our fallback option if this doesn’t pan out.”  
  
Charlie grinned. “Oh, you mean somehow managing to pull a severely bloated walker out of a long, narrow well won’t go smoothly?”  
  
“Well, it’s definitely gonna be interesting.”  
  
“To say the least,” she snickered.  
  
No more than ten minutes later, the light blue 1966 Ford F-100 drove up toward the fenced in area where the well and windmill were, with Otis behind the wheel, Maggie sitting shotgun and teen boy Jimmy in the back bed. Otis maneuvered the vehicle, turning it around so that it backed in through the gated opening. Jimmy tossed a rope out of the back bed, letting it drop to the ground close to Rick and Charlie’s feet, but held on to the other end. Maggie and Otis both climbed out of the truck, which was idling, as Jimmy began to tie the rump around the bumper as best as he could.  
  
“We’ll have to all pull on the rope, too, so we don’t risk pulling the bumper off and letting the walker drop back down into the well,” Rick commented.  
  
“If we even manage to get the rope around the walker in the first place,” Charlie quipped.  
  
Taking the other end of the rope, Rick glanced at Charlie before working out a wide enough loop to throw down into the well and hopefully snare the walker with. Meanwhile, Charlie gestured to Otis to give her a hand in removing the planked lid off the well so the walker could be pulled all the way out. It wasn’t nailed down or anything, since the base of the well, was stone. The cover was just there as a precaution, so nothing fell in.  
  
Walkers were the exception, clearly.  
  
Cutting across the top of the well, but through the stonework, was a metal pipe. Charlie crouched down, grabbing at one end to see how secure in the stonework it was. When the one end didn’t budge or even roll, she stood back up and walked around to the other side of the well and repeated the process; making sure that end was just as secure. Rick watched her the entire time. At first he was curious and then he was just thankful that she was being so thorough to make sure every facet of this plan had little room for getting fucked up.  
  
When she stood back up a second time, Charlie planted her palms upon the curved stone edge of the well and peered down at the bloated walker within, which was only slightly aware of movement from up above now that the cover to the well had been removed. It was sloshing around, clawing here and there at the slick inner wall of the well and trying its best to tip its head back and look upward as it growled with perpetual hunger. Charlie pushed some hair behind her ear and grimaced.  
  
“He sure is an ugly fucker, don’t you think?” she remarked; a slight rise at the corners of her mouth to convey amusement.   
  
Rick stared across the well at her with a smirk. “Aren’t they all?”  
  
“This one especially, though. He looks like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man after a bender.”  
  
Rick snickered at the comment and the visual it produced in his mind. Looking back over at Otis and Jimmy, the latter he figured couldn’t be any older than eighteen, seemed to be waiting on him for the next move as if he had experience in this sort of thing. “Alright,” he began, figuring he might as well take point. “We toss the lasso down, as many times as needed to successfully snare it, then Otis—you get back in the truck and give it some gas, but not too much. We don’t want to cause the rope to snap.”  
  
“Toss the rope over the pipe, not over the rough stone edge,” Charlie interjected, staring at the well with her hands on her hips and looking quite pensive. “The friction from the rope on the stone will scrape and tear at the fibers; causin’ it to break after a while, especially with the weight of that walker on it. The pipe, smooth as it is, will act as leverage. Kinda like a pulley system. Also,” she looked over at the others, who she found staring back at her, “it’ll keep the walker’s body off the side of the well if and when we get it up. If it has a belt, or any part of his pants or legs, it could snag the edge. That’s a hefty middle it’s got. That waterlogged for who knows how long, the skin could be extra thin. One wrong move and its entire middle could rip open and spill back down into the well; pop like a balloon filled with party confetti.”  
  
“So what happens once we manage to get it up using the pipe?” Maggie asked, holding a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun.  
  
Rick and Charlie looked at each other, but Rick chose to defer to her. As far as he was concerned, she was the only one on this entire farm with the most experience dealing with the undead. He felt comfortable in safely assuming the Greene Farm and its inhabitants had cut themselves off from the outside world almost as soon as the shit hit the fan and probably didn’t have as many opportunities to deal with walkers. Especially not with Hershel’s dislike of guns in his house or being carried around on the property. What else did they really have to defend themselves with? Bread knives from Sunday dinner? Pitchforks from the barn? The fact that the downstairs windows of the farmhouse weren’t even boarded up suggested they were clearly just going about their lives on the farm with little to no interference.   
  
“What happens is we cover its face so it can’t see anyone or bite anyone. When it’s clear of the well, we stab it in the head,” Charlie replied. “We put it out of its misery. Shit like this is unnatural. When we die, we’re not supposed to still be walkin’ around; bitin’, infectin’ and tryin’ to eat the livin’.”  
  
Rick placed his focus on Maggie, and then on Jimmy and Otis; noticing the awkward look they shared with each other. He interpreted it as their inexperience with dealing with these types of things. Hell, he was still new to all this, but at least he’d been further out in the world. In three days he had seen how bad both the dead and the living could be now. He highly doubted Maggie, Otis and Jimmy had.  
  
“You have some sort of burlap sack, a bag or an old shirt we could use to put over its head?” Rick inquired, giving his attention primarily to Maggie.   
  
She nodded, and then looked to Jimmy. “Go find something, okay?”  
  
Jimmy hesitated, moving his gaze back and forth between Rick and Maggie. “Okay.”   
  
A moment longer the teen’s gaze lingered before he took off in a sprint toward the house. Otis walked to the open driver’s side door of the truck and turned the ignition off so the idling wasn’t wasting any more fuel. No one said anything while they waited for Jimmy to return. They just stood there, except for Charlie who sat down at the edge of the well, occasionally looking down at the walker to figure out where around its body would be the best spot for lassoing it.  
  
Within five minutes, Jimmy had returned with one of those reusable cloth shopping bags. “Will this do?” he asked, holding it out to Rick.  
  
That simple gesture alone, of offering the bag to Rick and not to Maggie or Otis first, let Rick know that the teen wasn’t untrusting of him. “This’ll do,” he confirmed, choosing to pass it along to Charlie, since covering the walker’s head had been her idea, after all. “Alright, let’s get this done.”  
  
Taking the end of the rope that was looped and knotted, Rick walked around to the side of well where Charlie stood; making sure the rope was draped over the pole. He grimaced, the sight of the walker rather nauseating. Without saying anything further at the moment, Rick gave himself some slack with the rope to work with and, when he was ready, aimed the loop as best as he could and tossed it down at the walker.  
  
Not surprisingly, he missed.  
  
The walker swatted at the rope and nothing more, and then Rick pulled the rope up and away from it by mere inches to try and get the walker through the loop one appendage at a time.   
  
“He’s moving too much and it’s too dark.”  
  
Charlie sighed and looked up at Rick. “Okay, so, we need a flashlight.”  
  
“Don’t need to go back to the house for that,” Otis announced.  
  
Stepping over to his truck, he hopped into the driver’s seat and leaned down. A moment later, he was sitting back up and extending his left arm outside the truck, holding a flashlight. As he climbed out of his truck, he trudged over to Maggie, who accepted the flashlight, turned it on and shined it down into well.  
  
“Shine it right on him,” Rick encouraged, looking sideways at the younger woman before taking another stab at snaring the walker in the lasso.   
  
Everyone else stood around anxiously and waited or watched. Rick cursed under his breath more times than he could count and was starting to give on up this working; wondering if maybe there was some other option they could try. He was also thinking about how, only a few months ago, he was home with his wife and son, and the world was devoid of the walking dead. Society as it was still existed just a few months ago, which just showed that when society fell, it fell fast.  
  
“Maybe we can try to—” Rick began to say, looking up at Charlie, just as he felt himself being tugged forward.  
  
The moment he looked back down into the well, he felt Charlie slap him enthusiastically upon the arm and saw what she and the others saw — that the walker’s arms and head were completely through the lasso and it was tightening around its chest, just under the arms.  
  
“You got it,” Charlie announced, looking to Otis. “Get in that truck now and give it some gas, but not too much too soon. We don’t wanna rip this fucker in half.” As Otis nodded and went straight for his vehicle, Charlie looked between Maggie and Jimmy. “You two helpin’ or are you just the cheer squad?”   
  
As Maggie turned off the flashlight and tossed it aside, she nodded at Charlie, who took a place behind Rick. The four of them — Rick, Charlie, Maggie and Jimmy — each grabbed some patch of rope and began pulling along with him before Otis even placed his foot upon the gas pedal. When Otis, did, however, the task got that much easier. At a slow but steady pace, the walker began to lift out of the water, flailing its arms lethargically, either due to its own weight and the water soaked into its body, or simply because it was dead and not capable of moving and reacting too quickly. The growling noises it made sounded raspy and like it were gurgling from being choked. The closer it got toward the top of the well, the more natural light from the sun provided in seeing more detail about this walker and how disgusting it really was.  
  
“Jimmy, get the bag,” Charlie ordered as the walker’s head began to near the surface.  
  
The teen let go of the rope, but his lack of presence in pulling didn’t do anything. Otis in the truck was doing the brunt of that work by this point. When Jimmy reappeared, this time at Rick’s side, he was holding the cloth bag in his hands and looking for further instruction without verbally asking for it.  
  
Once the walker’s head was fully above out of the well, Rick nodded Jimmy. “Put the bag on its head. Now,” he gritted through his teeth.  
  
As the boy did as requested, he did so warily. “Now what?”  
  
“Help me grab its arms.”  
  
Rick still held the rope, but now only with one hand as he leaned forward and grabbed onto one of the slick and bloated arms. Jimmy, again, hesitated for a moment, but was then there and ready to hold his own by grabbing the other arm. The task was only somewhat tricky because of the way the rope was draped over the bar through the well’s topside, which meant both Rick and Jimmy had to readjust their grips on the walker as they moved around to the side where freeing the walker would be easiest. When the walker’s shoulders were well above the surface, Charlie released her grip on the rope as well and leaned forward to grab onto the walker’s soaked jeans. She hooked both her index fingers through the belt loops on either side of its zipper and then Maggie was there, across from her, gripping the belt and its jeans, wherever she could manage.  
  
The four of them together pulled the walker clear of the well but before they could drop it down, Charlie got frantic. “Quick, drop all of him on the ground. His middle is rippin’.”  
  
Not needing to be asked twice, Rick and Jimmy gave one last tug away from the well and dropped the walker’s head, arms and torso upon the dusty, straw-littered ground while Charlie and Maggie kept their grips upon the walker’s pants so its bottom half didn’t rip from the top and slip back down into the well with all its rotting viscera. The second its entire body dropped to the ground, its midsection tore at the sides, but not completely. Dark, putrid blood and something else in liquid form began to quickly seep from the new openings, along with an absolutely horrible odor.  
  
The moment the foursome got a whiff, their grimaced, gagged and turned away or covered their noses with the backs of their hands or forearms.  
  
“Oh, that’s nasty,” Maggie grumbled.  
  
“Who has a knife on ‘em?” Charlie asked, wiping her hands on her pants. “Anything—a hunting blade, pocket knife…a long, pointy stick…”  
  
Jimmy held a hand up and then removed a pocket knife from his back pocket; handing it over to Charlie.  
  
“Thank you,” she muttered.  
  
Flicking the blade open, she crouched down and let the tip hover over the walker’s head. With her free hand, she began to gently tap around the cloth bag-covered head for where an eye was, finding both to be too puffy and closed, but it was better than nothing. Without hesitation, after settling on one of the eyes, she shoved the blade down deeply. Blood seeped out and began to stain the bag. The walker had stopped moving, meaning it was dead, so there was no need to try again or push down even deeper. Leaning back on the heels of her boots, she pulled the knife out and then removed the bag.  
  
“Well, it’s dead now,” she continued; stating the obvious. “We should probably bury it or burn it.”  
  
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Maggie commented, turning and stepping away from the dead walker. She had pulled her hand from her nose and placed her hands on her hips as she stared off toward her house.  
  
“I think we can talk to Hershel about letting you two use the well closest to the house,” Otis announced; having turned off his truck and exited it moments after the walker was clear of the well. “I don’t think it’d be best drinking this water right now.”  
  
“We could boil it,” Rick suggested.  
  
Otis shook his head. “No.” He frowned as he took a better look at the walker. “Don’t risk it. Even if the water isn’t contaminated by what made people like that, it’d just be gross.”  
  
Rick listened and nodded. “We have water bottles, a few cans of soda to tide us over for a few days. We can revisit what your offering when we run out. If Hershel determines it a no-go, we’ll take our chances with this well, or any of the other three wells on the farm. Or we’ll find something else, wherever we can.”  
  
“But if you want to ask Hershel for his permission for us to use that closer well, that’s cool, too,” Charlie added; standing up and giving Rick a withering look, as if trying to reprimand him for looking a gift horse in the mouth.  
  
Rick nodded again. He couldn’t deny that option would be most ideal, but he was trying to be gracious enough for them being allowed to stay on the property. He wasn’t trying to take a mile when given an inch. But if he was offered a mile, he supposed he couldn’t turn it down. Nor would he want to.  
  
“Okay, so…” Charlie spoke, looking between the three Greene farm residents. “Where do you want us to dispose of this guy?”

 

* * *

  
  
That evening Rick and Charlie sat in two chairs folding chairs belonging to the Greene family that Maggie had brought over for them to use so they didn’t have to sit on the ground around the fire they’d built. They’d found rocks eventually, after burning the bloated well walker, along the edge of the property not too far from the barn. Kindling came from the woods in the form of branches and twigs, and an old rotted trunk. With the axe Rick had taken off that campsite in the forest the day before where he’d found that rotted corpse inside the tent, he chopped that rotted trunk up and carried the pieces back to his and Charlie’s makeshift campsite about a fifty yards away from the farmhouse. There, Rick found Charlie in the throes of setting up their spot on the farm a bit further; using one of the spare blankets to drape across a branch with some clothes pins Maggie had also given them. When Rick had asked what it was for, she said it was for privacy, so they could shit, piss or wash up without anyone seeing. Pulling back the blanket, she pointed out a bucket and joked about how they had a pot to piss in, so things were looking up.  
  
While they were waiting on their meal of baked beans and tuna fish to warm up in the saucepan, the front door to the farmhouse creaked open and shut. Both their gazes turned and looked straight ahead; no longer having to squint because the sun had already set even though it wasn’t quite yet dark out.  
  
Hershel was walking toward them and he seemed more relaxed than he had that morning when he first met them. In fact, he looked quite thoughtful.  
  
As a show of respect, Rick stood up to greet the older man as he approached. “Hershel,” Rick nodded.  
  
“Rick,” Hershel nodded back.  
  
As for Charlie, she remained seated as she leaned forward to take over cooking their food.  
  
“Is something wrong?” Rick asked.  
  
This time the older man shook his head. Placing one hand upon his hip, he gestured toward the saucepan with the other. “I see Maggie thinks I won’t notice all the little things missing from the house.”  
  
“I’m sorry. We didn’t ask for them, she just gave them to us.”  
  
“It’s alright. My family can live without a few pots and blankets,” he insisted. “What’s for dinner?”  
  
“Tuna and baked beans,” Charlie answered, stirring the contents of the saucepan with a fork.  
  
Looking toward her, Hershel smiled ever so slightly. “Otis, uh…he’s the one who goes out hunting larger game for us. Usually a deer, but mostly smaller things like rabbits or squirrel so we have some fresh meat to cook up and eat. I bring this up because, as long as you’re staying here, and you’re serious about helping out around here when you’re not out looking for your family, you can join Otis. Anything either of you catch and kill, my family will share with you. Anything you catch on your own, you can keep.”  
  
“No,” Rick shook his head. “Any game we get on our own, we’ll split with you, too. It’s only fair. Call it part of our rent.”  
  
Hershel chuckled. “Alright.” Looking over his shoulder, back at his house, for a moment, something seemed to dawn on him. “Maggie mentioned she’s going with the two of you into town tomorrow, to get some supplies, but also to make your way to Charlie’s mother’s house, to bury her…”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Charlie became sullen as she listened to the two men talking more directly with each other. She looked forward to those moments during the day when she was occupied with something else when she didn’t have to think about losing her mother. She’d done pretty good all day, but Hershel bringing it up made the pain in her heart ache again.  
  
“We didn’t think it’s something you might be too keen on,” Rick continued.  
  
“Not at first, no,” Hershel agreed. “However, my Maggie is a headstrong young woman. She’s smart and I trust her to be safe, and if she’s gonna go with you tomorrow, I’m holding you to making sure she comes home to me in one piece or else there will be hell to pay,” he warned with a smile. “I might not be a young man anymore but don’t think I won’t kick your ass.”  
  
Rick just stared at Hershel for a moment and then looked down at his uniform shirt, which was unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal his white t-shirt underneath. “We’ll take care to keep her out of harm’s way to the best of our ability.”  
  
“I want better than your best, Rick. She may only be twenty-two, but she’s still my little girl. You don’t mess with a man’s little girl.”  
  
“If I had a daughter, I’m sure I would be just as anxious. I promise to be vigilant about keeping her safe on your behalf tomorrow. We  _both_  will.” Rick looked back at Charlie, who looked to be very engrossed with cooking dinner.  
  
“Promises are just words, though,” Charlie muttered, and for a moment Rick almost scowled at her; thinking she was gonna go against everything he had just said to Hershel. Looking up from the saucepan, she glanced between both men but settled her gaze upon the older one. “It’s our actions that’ll speak louder.”  
  
Focusing his attention upon Charlie, Hershel nodded appreciatively. “And I’m gonna hold you both to those words  _and_  those actions. But I also want to thank you for taking care of that situation with the well earlier today. Otis also spoke to me, about letting you two use the well closest to the house and I suppose it would be alright. I know I was a bit rough around the edges when we first met this morning, but you have to understand; we don’t normally take in strangers.” Looking between both Rick and Charlie, he held a hand up and gave a gesture that looked somewhat like a small wave. “Well, I’ll leave you two to your meal and bid you goodnight. I’ll see you both in the morning.”  
  
“Goodnight,” Rick replied. “And thank you again.”  
  
“Goodnight,” Charlie repeated.  
  
Hershel didn’t say anything else. Instead, he smiled a small smile and then turned around to walk back toward his house.   
  
After watching after the older man for a few moments, Rick returned to his chair beside Charlie and cast a look over at her. When she felt his gaze on her, she met it halfway and pointed to the saucepan.  
  
“I think the food’s cooked enough.”  
  
“Alright,” he muttered, grabbing for the other fork in the plastic grocery bag they’d removed the saucepan from. Removing the fork and holding it in his hand, he frowned. “We don’t have any bowls.”  
  
Charlie shrugged and used the fork she’d been stirring with to scoop up some of the food; bringing it to her mouth and blowing on it. After taking a tentative bite, she let her gaze linger back over to him and then gestured toward him with her fork. “We’re campin’,” she quipped. “Learn to rough it.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Rick smiled. When he jabbed his fork into the saucepan and scooped up his own initial helping. “It could be worse,” he remarked with a sparkle in his eye before shoveling his forkful into his mouth.  
  
“Yeah, it could be,” she agreed.

 


	5. The Courage That My Mother Had

__

_Oh, if instead she’d left to me_  
_The thing she took into the grave!—_  
_That courage like a rock, which she_  
_Has no more need of, and I have._  
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, 'The Courage That My Mother Had'

* * *

  
When Charlie woke the next morning, it was to the sound of chirping, but nothing that belonged to that of a bird. Letting her eyelids lift open, the first sight she saw was a wall of blue nylon material that left her confused for a moment or two until she looked to her right and found Rick, still asleep, on the opposite side of the tent from her. It was either the early morning heat creeping up or that he just emanated so much of his own heat, because Rick was just lying there on his stomach, his face turned away from her, his white t-shirt having gone missing and his blanket tossed off him. Charlie looked briefly down at her own self and was like a polar opposite of Rick; wearing her jacket again once the night had cooled down considerably, and wrapped tightly in two of handful of blankets Maggie had given them to use. Charlie remembered even waking up a few times throughout the night, chilled and pulling her knees up to her chest to keep in as much of her own body heat as possible.  
  
“Lucky,” she muttered to herself in regard to Rick as she was distracted by the chirping noise again.  
  
Turning to her left, she sat up slowly and peered along the seam in the tent where the nylon wall met the nylon floor and followed it toward a spot just before the corner where there was a small hole in the tent that Charlie hadn’t noticed at all the day before. What’s more was the small cricket, sitting in close proximity to the hole and wholeheartedly undaunted by the large human staring down at it.  
  
As if to prove its bravery in the face of possibly getting squashed, the cricket chirped again.  
  
“Fuck off, Jiminy.”  
  
Pulling the blankets off her legs, Charlie ran both her hands through her unwashed hair and frowned. Even though she had rigged up a blanket for privacy so they could shit, piss and wash up, there wasn’t really the time to squander on that today. At least she had a few black hair ties around her wrist that she could use so she didn’t have to look as gross as she felt. Going back home to bury her mother, as horrible and saddening as that was going to be, she was definitely looking forward to gathering up a bunch of her own supplies she’d been forced to leave behind; clothing, her own toiletries, maybe some housing items. Twisting her lips, she thought about how maybe they could clean up the trailer after burying her mother. Maybe the trailer could be her and Rick’s home base when not out looking for his family instead of mooching off the Greene Farm’s hospitality. Though, the trailer was a couple miles further northeast, which meant further from Atlanta and the city’s outer areas, which Rick was primarily hoping to check.  
  
“Rise an’ shine, Ricky.”  
  
Rick grunted, half into his pillow. “Don’t call me that,” he mumbled.  
  
Charlie smirked and then lifted her own pillow up and tossed it at his head. “Wakey, wakey, eggs an’ bakey.”  
  
Rolling onto his back, Rick squinted to his left at her. Propping himself up on his elbows, he grabbed at her pillow and tossed it back. “How many morning euphemisms are you gonna use?”  
  
Catching her pillow, Charlie smiled and placed it back at the head of her sleeping area. “As many as it takes till your ass is  _up an’ at ‘em_ ,” she replied with a grin. “Seriously, though, let’s make the most of the day and get movin’, alright?”  
  
As she pushed her blankets off her and got up to her feet, Rick let his gaze follow her as he was still fighting off sleep. He hadn’t slept well through the night, and not due to comfort. Comfort wasn’t an issue. Sleeping in a tent, which was on soft grass, with a proper blanket and pillow to use was lightyears more comfortable than the pew and that tree had been. He had simply been dreaming way too much and none of it had been all that pleasant. Mostly, everything he dreamt about involved finding his family, but each time he was too late because they were either dead and being eaten by walker,  _dying_  as they were being devoured alive, or they themselves were already walkers and coming after him. Truthfully, he was glad Charlie had woken him up. It meant no more dreams until he went to sleep again.  
  
“Were you ever in the military or maybe a drill sergeant in a past life?” he teased as he picked away at the sleep that had crusted in the corners of his eyes.  
  
“I told you what my mama was like. That should be explanation enough.”  
  
Crouching down, she began to rifle through the bag of toiletries Maggie had given them the day before and smiled when she pulled out a stick of deodorant that still had that protective seal under the cap, meaning it had never before been used. Also, a bar of Irish Springs soap still in its wrapper, which meant Rick and Charlie could sponge bath a little.  
  
“I’m gonna make quick use of this soap, deodorant an’ that bucket of water outside, behind that makeshift privacy curtain, so don’t come wanderin’ outside this tent all willy-nilly an’ walk in on me with my pants ‘round my ankles.”  
  
Rick raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, thanks for the heads up, I guess.”  
  
Without another word, Charlie unzipped the tent and stepped out into the morning with the soap and deodorant in her hands. Rick took the alone time in the tent as a chance to let his guard down. Bringing his knees up toward his chest and draped his arms across his knees. Bowing his head, he gazed downward toward his t-shirt clad stomach and sighed.   
  
Still, the dreams were hard to shake, and it wasn’t just that the dreams were horrible, but that there was fact that they could be sort of prophetic. Rick didn’t know what kind of situation he’d find Lori and Carl in, if he even found them at all. Going on the assumption, as well as the hope, that he would find them, he could find them in any multitude of ways. Like his dreams, they could be all manner of dead. They could be dead and buried somewhere, with or without any sort of grave markers, or they could be dead, ambling corpses, which made him think about Morgan and how he hadn’t been able to bring himself to put his wife Jenny down. Rick wondered if he’d be able to put Lori and Carl down if he found them like that, or maybe he’d be hesitant like Morgan. Hell, he didn’t even know if Morgan had put Jenny down yet or if at all.  
  
Lifting his head, Rick stared out the tent’s door flap, which afforded him a view of the top of the barn in the distance, due to the angle the tent had been set up at and on which the gradient of the farm’s property sloped slightly toward the barn.  
  
The thoughts of Lori and Carl kept changing in his mind; of the different ways he’d find them. What if only Lori was alive and Carl was dead, or if Carl was alive and Lori was dead? If Lori was dead, who was taking care of Carl and was he eating well and being kept safe? If Lori was alive, how was she surviving the loss of their son? He hated not knowing.  
  
Wiping an errant tear away that he hadn’t fully realized had been falling down his face, Rick let out a deep sigh and decided to wipe away any dark thoughts regarding his family for now. Today he had promised to help Charlie go home and bury her mother and gather up some supplies there. Today would be her day, not his. She had already pledged herself to helping him find his family for however long it took them, so the least he could do was not monopolize the self-pity.  
  
Getting up to his feet, he stretched his arms, flexed his shoulder blades backward till there was a pop of relief between them, and cracked. “I’m coming out of the tent,” he called out to Charlie after pulling his boots on. “My eyes are on the fire pit and not on the curtains so I won’t see anything I’m not supposed to.”  
  
“Ever the gentleman, aren’t ya?” she chuckled.  
  
“I try my best.”  
  
The second bucket of water they had filled up the day before had the pot they’d used for cooking and their forks inside, soaking since the night before with a dollop of the dish liquid Maggie had given them. What was left of the wood and kindling was cold and barely more than greyish lumps amidst ash. The pot was dark to begin with but Rick could still make out a large number of mosquitoes and other bugs that had been drawn to the water overnight and drowned. Very tiny bubbles from the dish soap still clung to the rounded sides of the inside of the pot; the majority having long since popped and dissipated. These were the inconsequential details he took the time to notice while waiting on Charlie to come out from behind the curtains.  
  
“Not as cleaned up as I’d like, but at least I can’t really smell myself anymore.” Rick turned and watched as Charlie came walking up to him and holding the soap, which was resting upon its wrapper, and the stick of deodorant in her outstretched hands. “I’m lookin’ forward to hopefully managin’ to wash my hair this evenin’ if at all possible.”  
  
“I haven’t really noticed any smell.” Rick smirked, accepting the toiletries from her. “I think once you’ve inhaled the stench of bunch of rotting corpses as frequently as we have over the last few days — weeks or months in your case — anything else pales in comparison.”  
  
Charlie smiled. “Either way: go wash your ass a bit,” she urged. “We might not smell like the dead, but compared to Maggie, who’s gonna be sandwiched in a truck with us today, we  _do_  smell like the dead. Considerin’ how hospitable she’s been to us, sponge bathin’ our bits an’ baubles is the least we can do in return.”  
  
With a shake of his head and a hearty chuckle, Rick couldn’t help but agree. As he walked behind the curtains, he crouched to set down the soap and the deodorant. Looking over his shoulder, he glanced in the direction of the tree line from the woods they’d exited out of the morning before as if expecting either the living or the dead to be wandering toward them. Content in the knowledge that no one was watching him, from his side of the strung up blankets providing him with a modicum of privacy, Rick pulled his t-shirt off over his head and set it aside. Shoving a hand into the bucket before him, he cupped a handful of water and splashed it quickly under one armpit and then repeated it on the other to dampen them before using the soap to properly clean himself up. After rubbing and rinsing the suds away from his pits, he lathered up his arms, chest, neck and face; rinsing it all off by splashing himself clean with more handfuls of water from the bucket.  
  
Rick paused, enjoying the warm sun from through the branches of the tree overhead and the slight breeze against his skin. Staring at the blanket in front of him, he couldn’t see the house, nor could he see Charlie, but he could see Charlie’s feet to determine where she was standing. Again feeling comfortable he had the privacy he needed, Rick stood up and unzipped his pants and pushed them down over his hips to about mid-thigh. As freeing as it felt, and even though he knew there were no voyeurs around, he still felt compelled to cover his front with one hand as he bent down to grab a handful of water and then the soap to continue washing up—as Charlie put it—his bits and baubles.   
  
Once he felt adequately cleaned up, Rick pulled his pants back up and zipped the zipper, but didn’t bother putting his shirt back on. Instead, he crouched down again and dunked the shirt into the bucket along with the bar of soap as he began to lather up the material a little bit. Rubbing the shirt together, and watching it get sudsy, he submerged it in the bucket repeatedly to rinse it. Twisting it a few times to get as much water out of the material, Rick stood once more and draped the waterlogged shirt over a low branch to air dry.  
  
“You almost done, beauty queen?” Rick heard Charlie call to him.  
  
Stepping out from behind the curtain in only his uniform pants, he noticed her raising an eyebrow back at him. “It takes a while to look this good,” he gestured to himself with a teasing smirk.  
  
Charlie would never admit aloud she agreed that he did look very good, so instead she merely rolled her eyes. “You plannin’ on walkin’ around shirtless all day?”  
  
“I got that extra T-shirt and pair of pants in my duffel bag.”  
  
“Lucky duck.”  
  
It was time for Rick to raise an eyebrow at her now. “Duck and not fuck? Are you feeling alright?”  
  
“Maybe the quaint farm life atmosphere is already rubbin’ off on me,” she answered with a shrug and a smile.  
  
Rick stepped back into the tent, zipping it up to give himself privacy again as he changed out of his uniform pants and into the pair of black jeans he’d had in his bag, and redoing his belt, he then pulled on the clean white t-shirt. Once his boots were back on, which he’d taken off to change his pants out, Rick grabbed up his uniform shirt and hat. When he exited the tent, he zipped it up behind him and only then did he start to pull on his uniform shirt, but only buttoning it halfway. He topped his look off by placing his hat upon his head while meeting Charlie’s amused gaze halfway.  
  
“And here he is ladies and gents—Georgia’s very own Dudley Do-Right.”  
  
Choosing to bypass any further banter with her, Rick just let out a small sigh and smiled as he looked in the direction of the house, having noticed movement on the front porch. Straight ahead, Maggie was walking down the front steps clad simply and practically in jeans and a loose fitting, tucked-in tee, a pair of cowboy boots and her very own cowboy hat. Slung over one shoulder was a green backpack that seemed quite lumpy at the bottom. Maggie raised a hand and gave the pair at the tent a wave before she finally closed the gap between the three of them.  
  
“Mornin’,” the younger female greeted with a pleasant smile.  
  
Rick nodded. “Mornin’,” he repeated. “What’s in the bag?”  
  
“Some food and water, a can opener and fork for the food, and a small first aid kit. Stuff I’ll need. Not sure how long we’ll be today. I don’t wanna be out there, starving.  
  
Charlie grunted quietly and turned back toward the tent and unzipped the entrance, and then stepped inside.  
  
“She alright?” Maggie whispered to Rick.  
  
Looking over his shoulder at Charlie, Rick shrugged once he looked back at Maggie. “We were just shooting the shit before you came over.” Then, glancing back at Charlie once more, he raised an eyebrow. “What are you looking for in there?”  
  
When Charlie reappeared, she was holding up his utility belt with one hand and the Glock 17 she’d taken to carrying and using since they’d holed up temporarily at that bar in town a few days before. “We’re goin’ off the farm. We’re gonna need to have more on us than just food, water and first aid.” Catching Maggie’s eye, Charlie nodded. “If you don’t got a gun of your own in that bag of yours, c’mon in here and grab somethin’ you think you’ll feel comfortable usin’.”  
  
Biting her lip, Maggie paused a moment and then nodded back as she stepped forward and came into the tent, joining Charlie, who had handed Rick’s utility belt off to him. Crouching down Maggie looked through Rick’s duffel bag and eventually settled on a Walther P99.  
  
“You know how to use it?” Charlie asked.  
  
“I’ve been shooting before.”  
  
Charlie wasn’t convinced. Shoving her own gun into the back of her pants, she crouched down to Maggie’s level and took the gun from Maggie’s hands before proceeding to show her the basics of that particular gun; the dos and don’ts, how and where to load it, where the safety was. Only when she could see on Maggie’s face that Maggie understood everything that had been quickly explained to her, did Charlie hand the gun back. Pointing at a box of ammo inside the duffel bag, she then gestured up at the younger woman beside her.  
  
“Put that box in your backpack. That size of ammo will fit both our guns.” Without saying another word, Charlie exited the tent and rejoined Rick outside it; leaving Maggie to exit at her leisure. Standing there beside him, she could see he wore an amused expression upon his face. “What?”  
  
Rick shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing.”  
  
As Maggie stepped out of the tent, she began to place the box of ammo into her backpack along with her gun.  
  
“Keep the gun out. Tuck it in a back pocket or in the back of your pants like me,” Charlie insisted. “If you need that in a pinch, there won’t be time to unzip that damn bag.”  
  
“You know, I have been into town before and had to take care of a few of the infected.”  
  
Charlie smirked. “They’re not just infected. They’re dead. And we’re going a bit further out from that town a mile or two down the road from here.”  
  
“Charlie’s right,” Rick remarked. “And walkers aren’t the only thing to worry about. There’s people out there — survivors. And not all of them are friendly.”  
  
“As my mama can contest to,” Charlie added grimly. As an awkward silence fell over all three of them, she emitted a heavy sigh and placed her hands on her hips. “Alright. Enough dawdlin’. Let’s get outta here, shall we?”

 

* * *

  
Rick sat behind the wheel of Otis’ old, blue pickup truck, with Charlie sandwiched between him and Maggie. The younger of the two women had given Rick directions to get toward that town from a few days prior and from that point on it was left to Charlie to give directions once they backtracked from the town to the road Rick and Charlie had initially crossed paths on. Although neither had mentioned it to each other, both Rick and Charlie were a little curious as to how Maggie might handle seeing four dead bodies lying around the town’s thoroughfare, considering those dead bodies wouldn’t have been there the last time Maggie had made a trek into town. As they slowly rolled up, approaching the tavern on their left, there were only three dead bodies they could see lying there in the road that Rick had to maneuver the truck around. Maggie noticed them, there was no doubt of that, but she didn’t seem to be terribly put off by it. It was the body that was ambling about just around the corner that caught her attention the most.  
  
At the sound of the truck’s engine as it approached, a walker turned and began to follow the sound. All three inside turned and looked out of the driver side window and Charlie immediately sat back in her seat, staring straight ahead with so many questions rattling around in her brain. When Rick continued taking the truck in the direction they’d originally came into town from, he stole a brief glance at Charlie and saw her confused expression. He wasn’t so confused, as the thoughts he knew she was having was something that had perplexed him the day they rode out of that town on that horse and he had taken one last look back at the scene they’d left behind.  
  
Rick expected Charlie to say something about that particular walker or even just shoot him a quick look to convey what she was thinking, but instead she remained silent and kept her focus on the road in front of them. Maggie didn’t seem interested in talking about a dead guy walking around either, which seemed to be just fine for the other two, so the drive remained a quiet one until the truck approached Rick and Charlie’s initial meeting spot.  
  
Bringing the truck to a slower speed, Rick nudged Charlie’s arm with his elbow. “Where to?”  
  
“There’s an access road up ahead. Take a right onto it.”  
  
Soon, the turn had been taken and other roads had been crossed. They all noticed an abandoned pickup truck left parked diagonally across the road ahead of them at one point but Charlie had become noticeably perturbed by the sight. Because of its position, driving around it would prove difficult, though not impossible if they forged onward slowly and carefully due to the sloping gradient on either side of the road. That wasn’t what had Charlie on the edge of her seat and turning around, looking out the back window and at their surroundings.  
  
“That truck wasn’t here before,” she commented when Rick brought them to a crawl.  
  
“How do you know? You said you took off through the woods.”  
  
“I did. But the day before, I traveled this road in my mama’s truck, bringin’ back supplies I’d scavenged. This road was clear.”  
  
“Well, it’s been several days. Someone likely came this way since then and broke down.”  
  
“But the way it’s been left, across the road.” Leaning forward, she gripped the dashboard; keeping her eyes glued to the abandoned truck. “What if the rest of those dickheads…what if they parked it like that on purpose to cut us off and—”  
  
Rick sighed, and gave her a sympathetic look. “Those men had no reason to believe you’d somehow come this way. They chased after you. They followed us both to that town. Those men on that road after the church, when we ducked out of sight in time—that could’ve been them, too, but the point I’m making is they followed in a completely different direction from here,” he tried to reason as he turned the wheel slightly to move around the abandoned truck. Out of instinct, Rick and both women tilted to the right, as if that was what kept their truck from tipping left down the embankment, and not the simple fact that Rick had just enough room to maneuver without any issue. “See. Up ahead,” he pointed. “There, the tire tracks on the pavement; the curve to them.” When he was certain Charlie was seeing what he was showing her, it stopped their truck but continued to speak. “That truck swerved to miss something in the road. Probably a walker, or a few of them. Maybe a deer. There aren’t any bullet holes that I saw in that truck, the windshield and windows are intact. Whoever was driving wasn’t attacked. Most likely, whoever was driving that truck swerved to miss hitting something, stopped and waited for it to pass. Or maybe something in the engine blew and the driver lost control of the wheel, but managed to stop before going off the road completely.”  
  
“The latter would explain abandoning the truck and continuing on foot,” Maggie offered up. “I mean, simply running out of gas wouldn’t be cause for the truck to swerve. Something more abrupt happened. You don’t lose control and swerve at the loss of gas. The car just sputters and rolls to a stop.”  
  
Rick looked across Charlie to Maggie and gave her an appreciative nod. He sensed that Maggie understood Charlie was on edge about the task that lie ahead and it was eating at her. Talking down her worries was the thing to do at the moment.  
  
“Listen, Charlie, I know that we’re getting closer to your mother’s trailer and I know the reality of what’s waiting for you is scary, even for someone as unquestionably tough as nails as I’ve come to know you are,” he spoke; his voice kind and encouraging. “Maybe this abandoned truck is just that fight or flight response all over again. Maybe it’s a scapegoat for your fears. But you can do this. You can go home and we can help you take care of your mother and give her the burial she deserves. You can say goodbye.”  
  
Charlie nodded slowly and bit her lower lip. Her eyes were beginning to well with tears but not one fell. Possibly she just wouldn’t allow them to. At least, not yet. “I don’t think I can see her,” she admitted, looking down at her lap, while still gripping the dashboard, if not tighter than before. “I don’t want to see her dead. When she was shot and she fell, I couldn’t even look at her. I mean, it’s not like I had the time to stop and do so even if I’d wanted to. I just…I can’t see her like that.” Turning her head, she looked up at Rick. “When we get there, can you go in first and place a blanket over her face? There’s this afghan on the back of the sofa. It’s a crocheted, ugly piece of shit thing like what hung over the back of the sofa on  _Roseanne_ …”  
  
A corner of Rick’s mouth perked in a tiny half smile. “I can do that for you.”  
  
Holding his gaze, Charlie emitted a small, shaky breath and smiled ruefully at him. “Thank you. I just can’t see her face like that,” she reiterated, looking back toward the road. “If I do, I won’t be able to unsee it. I just wanna remember her as she was.” Her lips curls into a more amused and gradually less sad smile. “Always grinning and swearing, with a sparkle of mischief in her eyes.”  
  
Rick briefly focused on Charlie’s profile, and smiled himself, before returning his eyes back to the road as well. “I can imagine.”  
  
As Rick took his foot off the brake pedal and moved it over to the gas pedal, he pressed gently on it and began to move them forward again. The three of them fell into silence again, but only until they had put about a hundred feet between them and the abandoned truck.  
  
“What about these men that attacked, that you said followed you to ‘that town’?” Maggie questioned, turning and staring at both Rick and Charlie. “Are those the men dead in the street around the bar back in town? Did you kill those men?”  
  
Rick shifted his gaze away from the road over to Maggie, wincing slightly. “We’ll talk about it later.”  
  
“Well, I just don’t wanna regret talking you two up to my dad in convincing him to let you stay on our farm. I want to know you’re good people and I didn’t just agree to go off with you two into some sort of scheme y’all cooked up to bring any more of these so-called bad guys back to the farm to take it over.”  
  
“Those bad guys killed my mama,” Charlie snapped, turning and looking Maggie dead in the eye. “We can talk about them  _later_. Okay?”  
  
Maggie hesitated in answering. Charlie’s gaze was unfaltering and a little intimidating to turn from, but managed a brief glance over at Rick, who seemed unlikely to undermine Charlie’s insistence. At least the expression on his face was still kind and sympathetic as it had been when assuring Charlie. She supposed that was enough for now.  
  
“Sorry. I really am,” Maggie responded, returning Charlie’s gaze again. “I just haven’t dealt with something like this yet. Bad guys and shoot-outs. I’m taking you at your word, and I do believe you’re good people. I’m sorry. I just…I don’t think I realized how in depth your situation was. It’s a bit daunting, is all.”  
  
“Bad guys an’ shoot-outs I doubt are goin’ away anytime soon in this new world,” Charlie remarked, sitting back and trying to clear her mind. “This is the new wild west.”  
  
Rick frowned, with both his mouth and the lines in his forehead. He wished this new kind of world could have a happily ever after. That all the horrors he’d seen in just a matter of days would eventually go away and that everything would go back to the way things used to be at some point. Hope was a nice thing to have, of course, but those hopes weren’t necessarily realistic.  
  
After five minutes and a left turn on an even more secluded country road than the one they’d been on, Charlie pointed up ahead. “The red mailbox on your side,” she muttered, “Turn right. There’s a gravel driveway across from it. Kinda hidden but that’s on purpose. Mama said it made it harder for the Jehovah’s Witnesses to find us.”  
  
Maggie smirked. “We had a couple of those show up on the farm once, about ten years ago. The only time I ever saw my dad turn away someone of religion.”  
  
“There were other times?”  
  
“We had a Muslim couple find us by accident. They were trying to get to Atlanta, took a wrong turn off the main road. Daddy invited them in, gave them coffee, talked and joked with the husband for a while, and after giving them directions about how to get back on track toward the city, my stepmom sent them off with a paper plate, Saran-wrapped, full of cornbread.”  
  
“My mama would’ve aimed her shotgun at ‘em, fired a warnin’ shot in the air an’ then told ‘em to turn their asses around.” Charlie sighed, sitting back a bit rigidly as Rick turned the truck onto the gravel driveway. “She might’ve had a heart of gold, my mama, but she was racist as fuck.”  
  
Slowly, the truck ambled forward and after the gravel driveway curved to the left a bit, the trailer came into full view, along with the truck that had belonged to Charlie’s mother that had a few bullet holes in it and shattered windows from the gunfight. Rick parked Otis’ truck behind Charlie’s mother’s truck and they sat there for a moment, as if waiting on Charlie to make the first move to get out, even though she was stuck in the middle. The tree of them just stared ahead, out the windshield, taking in the view of the trailer, which was two colors. The top half was white, and the bottom half was robin’s egg blue. The barrage of bullet holes the entire length of the trailer was unmistakable, as were the broken planters that were littering the front porch, which looked to have been made of three layers of wooden pallets painted army green. Overhead there was an awning that attached to the front façade of the trailer much like it would to a camping trailer. It was faded as all hell but it was in remarkable condition still.  
  
“I’ll wait here,” Charlie finally spoke after a few moments. “Until she’s covered.”  
  
Rick nodded and then glanced over at Maggie as she began to move to exit the vehicle with him. “Stay here together,” he said; more of a command than a suggestion. Once Maggie sank back into her seat and let go of the inside handle to the passenger door, Rick climbed out of the truck but didn’t shut the door all the way; leaving it open just a crack.  
  
Stalking forward, Rick removed his Colt from his holster and began to sidle up alongside Charlie’s mother’s truck the same way he would approach any dangerous situation as the lawman he had been. Every gesture, every step and every move he made was methodical and careful. He kept his eyes peeled for the dead that might be hanging around. Just in front of the truck, he stopped and looked around the front yard where he noticed dried blood stains on the gravel, and splattered upon both the grass of the and the passenger side of the truck. The direction it was going and the height at which it was told Rick that someone had been standing beside the truck and been truck with a bullet from inside the trailer, taking the shot through and through, somewhere at the person’s midsection. Blood trailed away from that spot on the truck, and seeing no dead bodies anywhere or walking around the immediate vicinity gave Rick the impression that the men that had come here had taken their dead and wounded with them, either before or after chasing after Charlie. No fresh graves and no remnants of a bonfire strengthened that belief.  
  
Rick looked back at the front of the trailer and, remembering something Charlie had shown him to do, took his left hand and banged it upon the hood of the truck behind him. Whistling a few times as well, Rick waited to see if anything undead would come out of the woods surrounding the property or from behind the trailer that he would have to deal with first before heading inside. Walking forward, Rick lowered his gun a little and stepped quietly up onto the porch; gently pushing aside a broken pot with the toe of his boot. The trailer had two front doors—one to the right, which was directly in front of him, and one at the far left, but was blocked off by some sort of shelving unit on the porch. Rick could easily ascertain that the left door was never used. Stepping up to the main entrance, he pulled open the outer screen door and then pushed in the inner door, and was immediately hit was the stench of death and decay.  
  
Barely a foot away to his left, between the living room and the equally small kitchen, there lay the body of Gloria Reid, Charlie’s mother. Her hair was brown and about the same length as her daughter’s, and it was splayed out all around her. Whatever shotgun Charlie said Gloria had been using was gone, but there were plenty of shell casing all around the floor, as well as several dirty footprint belonging to men’s boots, so Rick knew the men that were here had come inside and taken the gun. Rick didn’t really care much to stare at the gaping hole in the woman’s face, but years of experience on the job and arriving to tragic scenes like this made it so his stomach didn’t turn as it would for the average person.  
  
Rick stepped over the body, further into the living room and turned to take a better gander at the woman’s face. A large chunk of her right side of her head was missing, including her eye. The eye that remained unharmed was closed, so Rick had no idea if it was the same color as Charlie’s, and he wasn’t about to hold the eyelid open to check, plus it wasn’t important. The face was turned more toward him. He figured that when she’d taken the shot to the right side of her face, it had whipped her head in the same direction as she fell back to the floor and that’s how she remained. Glancing upward, at the wall behind where Gloria lay, there was the velvet painting of Dolly Parton that Charlie had mentioned, and it was covered in blood splatter and other viscera that had been blasted from the back of Gloria’s skull, just as Charlie had also mentioned.  
  
Frowning sadly at the scene, he couldn’t help but ponder that at least this woman never knew what hit her. She would’ve been dead before she hit the ground. He supposed that if you were going to go as violently as this, it wasn’t all that bad. It would happen so fast, there would be no time for pain. It would just happen and everything you were would be over. Like a light switch being turned off and you went to sleep forever.  
  
Pushing the morbid thought away, Rick stepped over to the couch and grabbed on to the afghan Charlie told him about. Holding it in his hands, he returned to Gloria’s side and draped it over her head and most of her upper torso. Rick even went a step further by taking Gloria’s arms and crossing them over her chest. After making sure the scene would be easier for Charlie to return to, Rick walked back to the door and took a step out. Looking over at Otis’ truck he waved at the women inside and gestured that it was okay to come out and join him.  
  
As Maggie slipped out of the truck first, she stood beside the opened door and waited as Charlie slid out a moment later. The older brunette folded her arms across her chest and walked ahead of Maggie; a frown deep-set upon her face as she approached the front porch. Taking to the steps she had taken so many times in the past, Charlie made her way up to the porch and looked up at Rick, who looked back patiently at her. Hating this woe-is-me vibe she was sure she was giving off, Charlie dropped her arms at her side, gave them a shake and then cracked her head from side to side before giving Rick a nod.  
  
“Okay, let’s do this shit,” she announced.  
  
Taking a breath, she stepped by him and up into the trailer; her eyes going straight to her mother’s body. She was glad she’d asked Rick to cover her mother’s face because it allowed her to see past the fact that it was her mother and instead just look beyond to the fact that it was just a body and anything about her mother wasn’t here anymore. She was gone to wherever souls go to when they die, if anywhere at all. She looked to the kitchen, and then to the living room as Rick and Maggie stepped inside behind her. Charlie opted to ignore the small gasp of surprise when Maggie entered and was likely taking in the sight of the body, bloody splatter on the wall, bullet holes and anything else that had been damaged amidst the gunfight.   
  
Turning her attention back to the kitchen, Charlie frowned. “The cupboards were fully stocked with food. Fridge, too. Mama has a generator out back that allowed us to maintain electricity after the world went dark. I don’t know if those cunts took anythin’, food-wise, though.”  
  
“I’ll check, and then gather what’s leftover, even if it’s only a single can of tomato paste,” Maggie offered, stepping into the kitchen.  
  
“Is there a shed out back, with a shovel?” Rick asked, turning to face Charlie.  
  
Returning his gaze, she nodded; understanding why he was asking. “It should be unlocked. If not, the key is attached to that blue, plastic fob in the dish next to the TV.”  
  
“Alright, I’ll grab it just in case,” he responded, grabbing up the small key from the dish. “I'll get started on the other thing. You go keep yourself busy. Gather up some of your clothes, some toiletries, and whatever else we can use.”  
  
Charlie nodded again. “Okay.” As Rick made to exit the trailer, she grabbed his forearm and stopped him; catching his eye as she smiled appreciatively. “Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t mention it.”  
  
Once Rick had gone back outside, Charlie paused and noticed Maggie turning around from the cupboards and flash a small supportive smile. Charlie attempted to reciprocate the gesture but it fell flat. She found she hated pity, and so she pushed her grief down inside of her and tried brushing it off. She left Maggie to comb through the kitchen for food products, and turned toward the living room. She walked forward, gingerly stepping around her mother’s legs and not even allowing herself to glance down. She kept her focus ahead, on the narrow hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the bathroom between them.  
  
Charlie went into the bathroom first. The door was already open and she was greeted immediately by the stackable washer and dryer at her left that her mother had sandwiched inside what had once been the linen closed. Reaching her hand into the small space between the machines and closet wall, she grabbed the reusable, cloth shopping bag she knew would be full of yellow, plastic shopping bags from Dollar General. Dumping the plastic bags out into the tub beside the former linen closet, Charlie began to fill the cloth bag with the shampoo and conditioner that had been left on the shower caddy that hung from the shower head. Turning toward the sink, she grabbed her toothbrush and wrapped it separately in one of the plastic bags so the bristles wouldn’t get disgusting when thrown in the cloth bag with everything else. The medicine cabinet was void of anything medication, which Charlie knew there had been a few bottles of, which made her realize that those men had taken what was left.  
  
“What else did they take?” she wondered aloud to herself.  
  
Backing out of the bathroom, she turned left toward the smaller bedroom at the end of the trailer, which had been her room. Her closet was open and she could tell it had been rifled through. The drawer to her bedside table was open and looked ready to fall off. Other, trivial items lay scattered on the floor. Posters from her youth and framed photographs still hung, untouched, on the walls. Beside the clothes she knew she would need, the only other thing in her room she would want to take was her hairbrush and the framed photo of her and her mom, from a few years back when they had gone, posing together on a walking trail at Rock City. It had been a great day, and Charlie always loved that picture, which is why it was framed and was the focal point on the wall.  
  
Setting the bag of toiletries she had gathered so far onto her bed, she moved to the closet, digging around and sighing with relief when she discovered her old high school backpack was still inside. It wasn’t for sentimental reasons, though. She was just glad she had something easy for carrying more shit out of the house in. Opening up her backpack, she then opened up her small dresser and removed a few pairs of underwear, two extra bras, some socks, and threw them into the backpack. She then removed the picture from the wall and shoved it safely in, along with her hairbrush from atop her dresser. When she found her pair of running shoes, she smiled and put them in the bag as well. Right now, with the tall grass around her mama’s property and the propensity it had for snakes and ticks, the boots she was currently wearing were still necessary to keep wearing. But the running shoes, back at the Greene farm, would be so much more comfortable.  
  
Charlie returned to filling the cloth bag with toiletries from the bathroom. There wasn’t any more toilet paper either. The men had taken that, too. But there were plenty of tampons and Maxi pads. That sure as shit wasn’t something they needed. She grabbed an unopened package of twelve, Lady Bic pink single blade razors, as well as a couple extra bars of Irish Spring soap. Going through her mother’s room to the right of the bathroom was weird. She couldn’t figure out what she should take, if anything. Spotting the three-drawer storage cart in the corner near her mother’s closet, she decided that could come in handy as a space saver inside the tent back at the farm. Inside it was mostly just important papers her mother had kept, like bank statements and past bills that had been paid, also old paystubs. Nothing that mattered anymore. Opening each drawer, she removed all the paper and then hoisted the plastic unit onto her hip, now that it was light enough to carry. Heading out into the hallway, she gathered up everything she had decided she would be taking and began to carry as much as she could out of the trailer and over to Otis’ truck, where she placed everything in the back bed.  
  
Maggie did the same with the food items; commenting that things had indeed been taken by the men that had been there, but there were things that they must not have wanted to be bothered with because what they had left behind would require more time for preparing.  
  
“I don’t think men have the patience for what goes into to actually preparing a meal if it can’t be dumped straight out of a can and warmed up,” Maggie quipped as she was making her trip back from the truck and rejoining Charlie on the front porch.  
  
“Not in my experience, no,” Charlie agreed.  
  
“How you holding up?” the younger woman inquired, brushing her elbow against Charlie’s.  
  
“Fine. Better than I thought I’d be, I guess.”  
  
“That’s good.”  
  
Charlie nodded. Looking at the front door they’d left open, she wondered if there was anything else she should bother taking. She had only grabbed essentials, as had Maggie, but she wondered if maybe there were some material objects of sentimental value she should take as well. CDs and DVDs were kind of pointless, but maybe there were some board games for when her and Rick wanted to pass the time at night before turning in. She knew there was at least one deck of cards somewhere.   
  
Her thoughts were interrupted by Rick coming from round back. His pant legs and forearms were covered in red clay dirt, his uniform shirt was hanging open to reveal his white T-shirt underneath and his face was glistening with sweat underneath his hat.  
  
“It’s done,” he announced simply; knowing both women would know what he meant.  
  
“Okay,” Charlie replied. With a nod toward the inside of the trailer, she added, “Help me wrap her up.”  
  
Rick joined the ladies on the porch, clearly tired and a bit out of breath, but managing to hide it well. When the three of them were back inside, Charlie ducked down the hallway and returned no more than a minute later with a couple bed sheets. Rick took them from her; noting one of them was a fitted sheet and the other a regular flat sheet.  
  
Charlie looked away, focusing on a lamp in the corner of the living room as Rick crouched down and pulled the afghan off of her mother. She couldn’t ignore Maggie’s gasp this time; knowing the younger woman hadn’t prepared herself for what she was about to see. Rick didn’t look directly at the wound as he draped the flat sheet over Gloria’s body. He tucked it underneath her as snugly as he could manage and made sure she was covered head to toe. He then took the fitted sheet and place one of the elasticized corners around Gloria’s head and another corner around her feet. The other two corners he wrapped around the body and then lifted the body up into his arms.  
  
“Okay,” he muttered, letting Charlie it was okay to turn back around and for both women to follow him outside.  
  
Rick led the way out of the trailer and around to the back, near the shed where a grave had been dug. It wasn’t as deep as a typical grave. It was about two and half or three feet deep, and about six feet long, give or take. Stepping down into the grave with the wrapped body, he set it down gently and then stepped back out as he threw a look over to Charlie. She was staring at her mother’s body, a blank expression on her face and he wondered if he should start to bury her mother for her, or if she would want to say something first.  
  
Charlie made the decision for him in regard to what she wanted done next.  
  
“I can take it from here,” she declared.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
She nodded to confirm she was. “You already did so much already. She’s my mama. This is somethin’ I gotta do myself now.”  
  
Rick hesitated, as did Maggie, but then he stepped over to her and handed her the shovel as if he a marathon runner, passing a baton. “You got this, but holler if you need anything,” he insisted, giving her a pat to her shoulder.  
  
Gesturing to Maggie for her to join him in leaving Charlie alone, the pair of them did just that.  
  
Charlie stood there beside her mother’s open grave, studying the richness of the red clay and how it contrasted against the white sheets. Her thought process took a detour when mused on the fact that her mother owned white sheets, considering all she ever had seemed to have in the past was some god-awful plaid pattern, something that was a decade or more old, or that pink Mossy Oak camouflage set Charlie had given her as part of a Christmas gift a couple years ago.  
  
“I’d say somethin’ deep and poetic, but that’s not what you’d want,” Charlie spoke quietly down to her mother’s body. A small smile crept onto her lips. “I think the only time I ever heard you say what you wanted, in regard to a funeral, was that you wanted to be buried facin’ down so that the rest of the world could kiss your ass.” After a few moments of silence, the smile faded. “I’m sorry you died like you did, but in a way it’s kinda fittin’. You were always so tough. I guess goin’ out in blaze of glory like some sort of outlaw at the OK Corral seems about right. Doesn’t make it any easier that you’re gone, though. Because you shouldn’t be. The world fell apart and we agreed that it was gonna be you an’ me, just like it always was. We were gonna make it through all this together. I mean, you weren’t just my mama. You were my best friend. You were the only one that mattered in my life. The only person I ever loved. I don’t know what to do without you.” Tears that Charlie had been fighting back until now finally began to fall, but that’s all she allowed. She refused to sniffle or sob. “I met this guy, the day you died. And  _no_ , it’s not like  _that_. He’s just a friend. He’s tryin’ to find his wife an’ kid. Since I ain’t got anyone else in my life, an’ ‘cause he helped me, I’m puttin’ my efforts into helpin’ him in return. I mean, I need somethin’ to keep me goin’, don’t I? I need a purpose or else what’s the point to any of it anymore, right? I just hope I can be half as strong and tough and as brave as you were.”  
  
Charlie crouched down, using the shovel as balance so she didn’t fall into the grave on top of her mother. After all, her ankle was still sore from twisting it days ago. Grabbing a handful of red clay with her free hand, she rubbed her thumb along the small clump; feeling its soft, granular texture. After a moment, she tossed it onto the sheets. Pulling herself back up, with only a slight wince at the faint ache in her ankle, she returned her focus onto her mother.  
  
“I don’t know what else to say, so I guess I’ll wrap this up with a line from a Dolly Parton song, because who else, right?” she remarked. With only a brief pause, Charlie cleared her throat and recited, “If I should stay, well, I would only be in your way. And so I'll go, and yet I know, that I'll think of you each step of my way.”  
  
Charlie wiped a few tears away with the back of her hand and, without another word spoken, began to toss the pile of red clay dirt back into the grave to bury her mother.

 


End file.
